#this is literally so deranged I’m so sorry

[jokersphantom]

The Taste Of Death

Jack Goodman X Reader smut

WARNINGS: this has literal cannibalism in it, please do not read if you don’t yearn with your mouth. PIV sex, creampie, oral sex (reader receiving), mention of birth control.

A cold gust of wind brushes against your bare leg. The skin ripples slowly, like your body isnt used to being put in a situation where it has to heat itself and has since forgotten basic function. However if your body had decided to ignore you, you couldn’t quite tell because your mind was beyond comparison in terms of being vacant.

You received a phone call from Jack’s mother, informing you of your friend’s death across the sea. Her voice trembled and she practically sobbed as she told you of how horrible of a condition he was in and how David was a suspect in his murder. You should’ve been sad, but all you felt was disbelief; like you expected Jack to start laughing on the other end of the line before asking if you’d like to grab dinner with him (and David, of course, always David). You wish you cried, that you joined his mother in her quivering voice and choked sobs; instead, all you could do was think of how little of this she would share if she wasn’t so deeply disturbed and upset.

You went to Jack’s funeral, and discovered early on that you’d be waiting awhile to actually see him because everyone else who hadn’t given a shit in the past years decided to make up for it today. One of his exes showed up with her new boyfriend but started sobbing violently as she began to give a loud speech about how good of a man he was. As she spoke, you imagined Jack rolling over in his grave; or at this point, coffin; at her tears. “Wasn’t good enough for you to keep your pants on when Mark showed up!” You imagined him saying.

What stood out the most was the fact his casket was closed. Which only solidified your denial in Jack’s death. How out of place you seemed, staring down at the chiseled oak with a glare like you were expecting him to pop out and scare you like he did at a Halloween party years prior. Something even more ghastly was that you didn’t even think there was a body in there.

Weeks later you still hadn’t accepted that he died. You still consoled his mother and spoke with her often, you weren’t a complete lamb. David had yet to call, he was probably suffering a lot more than you were with your apathy or he was still comatose.

Once again the wind started to blow on through again and it finally caused you to shiver and begrudgingly trod to the window. As you neared, you heard the undeniable whisper of the leaves as they rustled and gently tapped the sides of the house. The outside was hardly visible, illuminated by the full moon and it left a cascading deep blue over the rest of the world.

You stared outside for a moment longer, letting the cool air curl around you and leave gooseflesh with every kiss upon your skin. The moonlight seems to bless you every moment you sit in its presence, the soft light bears white brightness among the clouds and entrances you in a way it never has before.

“Long time no see” a voice rings out from behind you.

Now you understand why.

As you turn around, there stands Jack Goodman in (what's left of) the flesh and before you can even think of it, you’re loudly exclaiming “Jesus Christ!” Before scurrying to your bed and balling up the covers as you try to shun away whatever you’re seeing by covering your eyes. “No, Jack, remember? God have you gone completely off your rocker since you’ve last seen me?”

You don’t dare remove the covers from your eyes, and you don’t have to. The springs of your mattress ache with weight and a gentle hand pulls it back. The fright sets a warm fire deep in your stomach.

Nonetheless, there he is, Jack Goodman. One of your best friends, completely mauled and looking at you with a smile as the grotesque chunks of flesh that's covered in a deep cherry red glisten under the light. In a macabre way, it makes your mouth water.

Jack looks at you for a moment before waving his hand in front of your face and snapping his fingers in front of your eyes. “You there? Oh god, you’re in shock; David’s gonna kill me again” he snickers at his own awful joke.

As you come back to earth, Jack gives you the rundown of what’s happened so far. While he speaks, you focus on what he’s wearing. The green puffer jacket that had been doused in your scent the night before because Jack “forgot you used it as a pillow case”; that statement is another one David did not buy and consistently gave him shit for the chick repellent as they rode on the back of a shepherd's truck.

“How I ended up back here, I’m not sure, not that I’m complaining about being in these sheets again” he flirts as he smiles at you, deep and round eyes looking directly into yours with something raw behind it all the pleasantry. You and Jack had slept together, he was as sweet as a friend with benefits could be.

“I think I’m going crazy” you say aloud and he titters before propping his leg up on your bed and resting his head on it sideways; leaving the bloody, mangled, and mutilated part of his skin open and hot against the air.

Jack catches your gaze and seems unable to resist the comment that comes from his mouth. “No fucking way” he laughs. You back yourself up against the headboard and pull your comforter with you, holding it defensively to your mouth and you give a startled look that quickly turns to anger. “What?” You snap out, a lot higher pitched than you wanted to, that made you sound more like someone caught with a porno mag and less like you were genuinely confused.

The look he gives you is a recognizable one, but it feels so alien at the same time. He starts to gently crawl towards you on all fours, in a way he knows you like to see. Feigning that innocence to how you feel just to hear you say it out loud because he mocks you even in death.

“Now, you wouldn’t be feeling a little turned on about how battered I am now would you, sweetness?” He asks, as irreproachable as possible while the pet name sticks to you despite how mockingly he says it. When you’re left gawking, he only gets closer to your face. “Because” pause. He drags one hand up across your covered leg. “If this was the face you wanted all along, I would’ve requested open casket”

Jack gets scarily close. So much so you can now make out minute details. His hair is slicked stiff with blood and sweat, black tufts of hair poke out messily. He smells of grass and mud, but only faintly; what stands out the most is the pheromones reeking off of him that would typically reek, but currently have you biting the inner skin of your bottom lip as the fingers of his left hand dance curiously across your knee.

His fingers have blood crusted under the nails and you sit there entranced by the carnal beauty of it all. Jack smiles to himself and takes it as an opportunity to trace your lips with his calloused fingers. Typically, he’d be a blushing mess and if he were still completely alive he’d never be so bold with someone.

Only difference this time is that he wasn’t alive, not fully; and that it was you. The amount of times he’d been almost caught with you on him has surpassed his count, and sure as hell yours. However the word almost really means David and when it comes to David, he’s got an amateur sleuth mindset and can unfortunately piece two and two together.

Unthinking, you open your mouth and feel as Jack pushes his index and middle finger over your tongue. Your tongue swirls around the pads of his fingers, feeling every ridge, scar and delta. A gummy clot of blood that was caught in the corner of his cuticle touches your tongue and you suck even harder.

Jack’s eyes become lidded, he looks at a random spot in your direction for a few moments, feeling the work of your mouth against his hands once again and in such a grisly manner makes his stomach burn.

Softly he pulls his fingers away from your mouth. He rests his hands on either side of you and puts his mouth close to your ear. “How about you shut the light off and we try that thing you’ll deny wanting to do” he whispers before he bites and tugs on the lobe of your ear before pulling away.

You push the blanket off of you, the plush of your thighs visible to Jack as you walk towards the light switch.

When the darkness floods the room, you’re left in wait for Jack, just as you were in life. When nothing happens for a few seconds you think you’ve gone crazy and you’re too afraid to turn around and see that he’s really not there.

The beautiful blue hue of the moon sets over your shoulders and the cool air brushes against your neck. The hairs prick up as the cool feeling leaves ghosts of kisses against your skin.

“Still here” Jack says quietly against the shell of your ear. You turn around to face him and he flicks the light on again, temporarily blinding you. “ M’ sorry” he says as his kisses become full and wet mouthed against your neck “changed my mind, jus’ wanted to see you walk away”

He buries himself there and you feel him smile before his teeth graze against you. The blood gushing from his wounds starts to slick your neck. This doesn’t stop him, he kisses and nips harshly on your veins and feels the pulse thrumming beneath it.

It’s like he can’t control himself. There’s something so deeply carnal and vulnerable about how he is now; as many times you’ve put yourself on him, nothing can compare to the sweetness of his blood covered lips against yours.

His teeth are digging deeply into your neck, a small pain blossoming from his teeth nipping at your skin. Your eyes shut and a breathy exhale leaves your lips. Jack smiles, like he always has, into your skin and comes up to give you a kiss. The sweet and metallic taste of his lips on yours leaves you utterly intoxicated like the first taste of absinthe.

If you had to compare it though, he’s much sweeter. And warmer. So much warmer.

Jack’s mouth has suddenly gone away from the short and innocent kisses and have transformed into heavily pressed attacks scattered across anywhere collar up. His skin is comfortingly thermic and at this point you have no choice but to fall back into the dizzying heat as Jack touches you like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, and it may very well be.

His hands are ever moving and constant. There’s a searing palm resting between your neck and ear. The free hand wanders continuously over your waist to the back of your thigh. Your hands move without your own permission and begin to unzip the green puffer jacket that’s half shredded and half covered in blood.

You hope that if he decides to leave, you can keep the jacket. Even just a piece to remember him by. It was a group purchase around the holidays one year, when David gifted you both an identical jacket similar to his red one. Yours was an absolute eyesore, but the mundane routine of wearing it all the time made the shade entirely your own.

You gently push Jack away from you and get to look in his eyes. You get to see the humanity tucked behind them as his clouded lust quickly turns into the sheepish look of a boy scolded by a schoolmarm. Even though you’re still entranced by just seeing him again after having to say goodbye before Europe and a second time to a piece of wood. Part of you wants to remain this illusioned forever, so that you can hold onto him even if he decided long ago to let go of you; because at this point all you have is a hideous puffer jacket and dinner receipts of a meal you paid for stuffed in your otherwise empty wallet. Suddenly the doe eyes and boyish smile disappear. A misstep.

“Guess kissing a corpse wasn’t on your bucket list, huh?” He chides with an awkward laugh but you know Jack better than that, and he’s being vulnerable. Pressed against the door of your room, you wrap your arms around the back of his neck; careful to leave the wound be, and as he looks at you; you knock your foreheads together and you press a small kiss to his lips and bump noses. “Could’ve gone for that one actor you like so much” you say, another kiss. “I’ll put in a good word for you” kiss.

Jack pushes his mouth closer to you without much thought, and it leads to some of the blood on his neck smearing on your arm. Suddenly the blaze in Jack’s eyes comes back and you grin.

Jack sticks his hand in the wound like it’s as normal as scratching an itch and a small amount of the blood comes onto his fingertip. He cups your face with the same hand, mindful of his bloody thumb. Your eyes dart between the pad of his thumb, that Jack pushes ever closer to your mouth; only waiting for permission to push it through.

There would be no coming back from it and you both know it. Jack has nothing to lose, while you’re teetering on the line between sanity and lunacy. The comparison of Eve and the apple comes to mind; any other lustful sin could be forgiven, but to feast upon the flesh and to consume the marrow of a ghost? Should this be a test from whatever divine figure that hates you enough to manifest your dead fuck buddy, you were bound for damnation surely. Your lips part.

Your mouth sours with saliva before you can truly taste. Then it hits you. The succulent, metallic taste sinks onto your tastebuds and you hope that Jack’s blood remains there until the end of your days. The splotch of scarlet forever stained on your tongue like ink upon papyrus so that any lover you may take after Jack knows they can’t compare because they won’t come this close.

You flick the light out, for good this time, and guide Jack to your bed. He waits patiently as you crawl in first. He waits by the edge with bated breath and glances at the full moon for but a moment. You poke your leg out over the bed and poke him with your foot and he pounces at you. The shirt that was tucked underneath his puffer coat has minimal damage compared to the rest of him. You sit up and drag it off of him and he instead goes for ripping the fabric off like it’s burning him.

You’re doing the same to your own and Jack is immediately kissing on every inch of your skin, there's a desperation that is unlike anything you’ve ever known. After you’ve both wriggled out of every piece of clothing and left slobbering wet kisses across chests and lips you start to get to the most sinful and carnivorous part of the night.

Jack’s pumping himself and whimpering all sorts of filth at you as you kiss around the lines where skin meets meat. “Please, honey, I want you to, I do, c’mon” Just one bite. He needs it, he needs to know he’s good. “You can’t hurt me” he whispers, strained.

Your teeth graze the saccharine flesh before you sink into the hot and dewey meat. Jack’s warmed up intensely, the heat rolling off of him in the moonlight in thick clouds of white. Jack shudders and you begin to let go immediately “Fuck, no, keep going” he says, lowering his neck on you more as his fingers begin to grace around you.

When you fully sink in again, there’s a burst of an unfamiliar flavor that hits you so hard you hope it doesn’t immediately get you hooked and desperate like morphine. You pull and tear and suck upon him but it doesn’t change anything. The difference between the living and the undead is that while you’re aching and getting the relief of Jack’s feast upon your body, wether it be by biting or pumping into your core, Jack is unchanging until time wants him to. You’re glad you were blessed enough to have him presented as you remembered, just a bit more banged up. Deliciously so.

You’re happy you can be close to him again, like this. Nothing else in the world but the two of you. For however long he’s tied to this plane, you want to take advantage of it all and you will greedily keep him here until he’s forced to go. So you bite, you bite and rip and chew like it’s the last way you’ll ever love anyone ever again. You wrap your hands into his hair and dig your nails into his scalp and all he does is smile at you and whisper your name he keeps his pace thrusting inside of you. When you pull away to meet his eyes, the glint of the night rests in his irises.

You imagine you must look like something positively cryptid. His blood smothered across your mouth, a toothy smile in his direction like a fox in a henhouse. He doesn’t say anything, he merely places a kiss on your mouth and breathes heavily across your lips. “ M’ close, honey” he says, as thoughtful as ever, and that’s how you know this has to be real; previous thoughts be damned, werewolves, ghosts, lawyers? All real.

You know this Jack Goodman is yours because even after being mauled to death and abandoned, after having to tell his best friend that he has to die, and after finding himself in your bed again and being accepted with open arms, he still tells you when he’s about to cum.

“I’ll take it as a bereavement gift” you say and he simply rolls his eyes and says “you talk too much” you tug at his pulled apart skin again before falling back into the sheets. Biting your lip and wrapping your legs around his core, you hold Jack’s head as he buries it in your neck and presses his forehead in the nape of your shoulder to watch himself go in and out for a few strokes before he pulls back and kisses you hard. You don’t open your mouth quick enough and your teeth collide painfully for a second and Jack giggles an apology against your lips as he continues his thrusts.

He pushes you back into the pillows with his weight and he moans into your shoulder. The perfect cadence of sound in your ears and after he stills for a moment you can feel the pulse of his cock inside you as he cums.

Ever the overachiever, he pulls out quickly and places his bloodied mouth in between your legs. The blood of his neck laceration rubs slick and loud against your thigh coating every pore and marking.

He puts his mouth on your clit, just like you taught him. He twirls his tongue around and even tries murmuring out something to dirty talk you, but he gets so pussy drunk it’s nearly impossible to hear what he’s saying.

He takes care not to get a mouthful of his own cum, his fingers going at a pace that you can hear even buried in the pillows.

Once again your hands find his hair and you push him deeper into your clit and Jack, always the good boy, obliges and tongue fucks you even harder.

Your legs lock around his head as you cum and he lets out a hum as you do. Your hips snap forward and he rides it out. Once you’ve come down a bit, he presses a few kisses to your thighs before going up to join you.

“Hope birth control covers that”

“Be more surprised if it did, I think”

Jack snickers and lays next to you, fingers trailing up your figure with blankets gathered unevenly around the waist down.

He’s still a human furnace and you eagerly curl up next to him. “Will you be gone tomorrow?” You ask. You expect a melancholy response. “Might go tell David to kill himself, but I’ll be back. Can’t guarantee I’ll be this pretty though” he says.

You just kiss him and close your eyes.

[fumifooms]

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

I’ve alluded to Marcille and Chilchuck being central to each other’s arcs so many times but the proper full analysis has been long overdue. I’ve made a post going into their differences and similarities and the many ways they’re foils for each other, but this is going to give more focus to a narrative rather than character angle this time around. We talk a lot about the importance of Marcille in Chilchuck’s arc, it's more obvious overall, but less so about Chilchuck’s importance in her own, so this is going to emphase on the latter. When talking about fantasy vs reality, usually optimism is associated with fantasy and pessimism with reality, but that's not the full picture either. Both situations and relationships can be layered and subtext can imply quite a lot, the reality of things can be more complex than we'd like or hard to reconcile, and that's exactly what we're talking about today and how that is a lesson both Marcille and Chilchuck needed to learn. Give this a shot and look at the manga pages alongside my reading and decide for yourself whether I’ve got a point or I’m going overboard~!

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

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

Table of contents:

How they start out

The Daltian Clan and its importance

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

Ideals vs desires vs wants

Deconstructing realistic romance & compromising between romanticism and reality

Princess imagery in Marcille

Conclusion

Let’s start with the beginning:

How the characters start off:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Daltian Clan & its importance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prince Charming vs Chilchuck Tims

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ideals vs desires vs wants

It's succubus analysis time

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

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

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

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

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

Marcille never reacts any particular way to Mithrun’s appearance despite the blatant resemblance, so that makes me think the point/joke is meta rather than character focused. The romanticization of elves and their societal drama in their fiction contrasting heavily with a very real and imperfect product of their military system. The canaries certainly aren’t glamorous next to whatever military Hareus is the general of. There’s even the fun little details like Hagreus’ lips being drawn with extra details because they’re full and pretty while Mithrun’s lips are drawn with extra details because they’re chapped and dehydrated. Hence the fantasy vs reality theme, both in that fantasies can be very disappointing when realized and in that they may not be what you actually want past your mind palace. Marcille doesn't even react to him- which we could almost directly parallel to how pretty young blondes is Chilchuck's type but he never seems to make a big deal of Marcille- he still wants his wife.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

🔥The bicorn chapter🔥

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

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

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

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

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

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

[page 1, page 2.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And this isn't only chilchuck adopting her perspective either, it's him completing it. Marcille still simplified the conflict between him and his wife, still couldn't have the whole picture, still put a positive and hopeful and romantic twist on it all, but she did have a point. Chilchuck reaches her halfway, is inspired by her, but he also complements her, says okay, but also this, also it might not go as well as that, not going against it but building on top of it, not trying to replace it but instead this optimism and cynicism coexisting, joining together. Marcille brings him back to the reality that he doesn't suck as much as he thinks and things aren't doomed, but he also brings her back to the reality that that may not be enough, and in that uncertainty called life they're learning to be okay with it, to smile about it, to want to be part of it, hearts open.

Notice how she defends his virtues directly taking from Daltian Clan for her reasoning, as well! Comparing chilchuck to her novel characters to explain him, rather than overwrite him.

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

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

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

Marcille has a whole theme with the prince charming trope, with her idealization and storybook motif and this is sort of the "Well someone perfect like that isn’t very realistic and romance is usually more complex- and that’s ok and good, and flawed people can still be ✨virtuous✨" conclusion. Again, fantasy doesn't have to be perfect to be worth it, to be valuable and lovable and great and precious.

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wants not the storybook prince that’s unrealistic and could crumble like a script at any time. He’s the perfect example of a flawed realistic but virtuous and devoted and loving family man. Far, far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks.

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

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

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

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

And please notice how she doesn't even really think his wife may have just wanted to leave him, no the goal was for them to be reunited with their love strenghtened- Combined with her glazing Chilchuck, the underlying energy is that to her someone not wanting to be with Chilchuck, wanting to break off things with him and leave, is unthinkable. For sure she'll be overjoyed to see you, for sure she's just waiting for you to come back to her! Is there a sign of higher faith in him, of higher fondness? There's respect and like and loyalty there. She truly values Chilchuck, always has but it keeps only getting more and more cemented, more and more real the more he opens up and she gets to know him. It's embarrassing for people to know your wife left you? Think again! You've just gained 50 friendship points with your trendiest friend and she has categorized you as a catch!

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

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

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

The Princess imagery

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

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

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

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

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like, and contrasted with such real yet unromantic and grounded words, all about the implications rather than in your face grand gestures "Don’t you want to meet my family?". They literally have an arc about the topic of romance and this is the climax/pinnacle of it like god?? I’m not saying this was all intentionally crafted to be romantic but it nonetheless exists in the subtext, ripe for analysis. Of course they talk about planning together his reconciliation wit hhis wife, but the same thing happens regardless, he fully lets her into his life.

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

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

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

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

Like, giving someone a handkerchief is literally a romance trope associated with nobles and princes. And Chilchuck has offered Marcille his handkerchief at least twice! The second time in the cockatrice chapter as a bandage. He keeps it in his pouch, with his tools, like the most must-have to offer it Marcille at any moment, ha /j. Prince behavior <3 The neckband like a knight’s favour, a token from a loved one he cherishes above all and keeps on himself at all times... Which I'll remind in her Chilwife roleplay she directly theorizes she was the one to knit it for him! Beautiful story tropes shit.

He IS a prince figure instead that now it’s not about idealizing the grand and overt it’s about romanticizing the small things in real life!! About finding joy and beauty in things that seem normal or mundane and uplifting them to make the world feel kinder!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

She’s afraid of change, so it's only fair that he would be perfect to teach her a thing or two. She had fantasies but he had experiences, both had bias. Their arc is about how bitterness isn't an efficient solution to hardships, about how assuming the worst from everything is a trap that doesn't reflect reality either, a trap people fall into just as much as rose tinted glasses.

Their arc is about how relationships need work and how it's worth the effort! You can overwater a plant but you can also neglect it, to find a balance between each's needs can be hard but is always important. Friendships just like romances shouldn't be taken for granted, and doing the extra steps of deepening your understanding of others and opening to them is rewarding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disclaimer:

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

Thank you to @/lyril for making the more complex collages!! Check out her blog!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fast and dirty TLDR

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

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

The prince charming figure has importance in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something more poetic, easy and digestible (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and where she needs to learn to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, but seeing their virtues too, like accepting that people need money and not pulling through on principles of honor or unity shouldn’t get Namari shamed) and a part of that is accepting that Chilchuck is BOTH flawed and virtuous, a loving husband that still has shitty moods and fumbled his marriage so bad etc etc. So it’s like, her image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance -> realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage but who still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending.

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities and capacities etc etc while still not leaving flaws unchecked either and 2) opening up to people. Marcille LITERALLY makes Chil open his heart up to hope like idk man. What do you want from me. He’s literally the guy helping her through deconstructing novels and fantasy and rose tinted glasses and like. Deconstructing the prince charming figure into something more real but still a virtuous husband like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

[haruta-shigemo]

Come back Haruta. I just stumbled on this blog.....I love troubled blonde slightly deranged twinks.

AUGH IM SO SORRY.. i keep forgetting this blog exists 😭

you’re real for that though here’s him in an egg slicer

[monkee-mobile]

okay i’m so so sorry but i need to bite him it would relieve stress

this is a horrible post i’m sorry

[bumblepart1]

I’m so cringe bro I’m making a 1:18 (was it 14??? I don’t remember) second animation for Henry Stickmin (which btw, the longest animation I’ve ever made was 15 SECONDS. SO.) ITS SO BAD. MY HYPERFIXATION IS SO BAD. ITS ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT BRO. THE FANDOM IS SO DEAD TOO. IM DONE FOR…. I LITERALLY THINK IVE STARTED KINNING CHARLES NO JOKE…. I AM SO DONE FOR……..

[deus-ex-mona]

worming out of awkward conversations l i k e

[littlebirdygirlywriting]

For the drabbles, maybe Tyler realising he’s been neglecting you and your relationship because he was getting excited about Kate’s experiment and everything and realising that he needs to focus more on you or else he could seriously lose you? Little Angst but with a good ending for Tyler and reader

Tear Stains on a Flannel Shirt

Twisters Masterlist

Pairing: Tyler Owens x Fem!Reader

Summary: When a new message pops up on your phone, you don’t even bother to read it. You know what it will be. Tyler’s working late… again. But are his new work habits just a means to a devastating end?

Author’s Note: Anon, I’m so sorry this took so long! I literally had to rewrite it three times because I kept backing myself into a corner. 💀 It’s possibly OOC and I’m really not happy with a couple of things, but I didn’t want to postpone it any longer. I hope you enjoy it anyway! 🫶🏻 (P.s. I feel like Tyler would text using yellow hearts… idk why, but that feels right.)

Warnings: Angst, but with a happy ending. Intense Descriptions of a Panic Attack, (aka, I almost gave myself one writing this). Tyler uses both “baby” and “sweetheart” as terms of endearment. Swearing. Brief Mention of Death, (it’s literally just a passing thought, but better safe than sorry).

Word Count: 756 (I’m trying to cease being surprised—I have come to accept the fact that literally none of these are drabbles. 😆)

———————————————————————————

New Message from: T 💖

You sighed as the notification popped up on your screen, swiping it away without opening it.

You already knew what it would be.

Sorry, baby. Kate and I are on the verge of a scientific breakthrough—please don’t wait up.

It was the exact same thing he’d told you every other night this past… week? Two weeks?

Tears flooded your eyes, your mind falling into the one-track record it’d been playing for the last three days.

He’s going to break up with me. He’s going to break up with me.

The thoughts raced a thousand miles a minute, no matter how many times you tried to convince yourself otherwise. No matter how many times you tried to rationalize the feelings. Tyler was a good man. He wouldn’t just leave you without a word of explanation.

And yet, panic clawed at your throat like a deranged animal.

This is how it starts. This is how it always starts.

Late nights, early mornings—more time spent at work, less time spent at home.

Soon, you would be two strangers living in the same house. And then, not even that.

He’s going to break up with me. He’s going—

Pain blossomed across your chest, stabbing, constricting. Oxygen refused to enter your lungs, or perhaps your lungs refused to utilize it. Black dots crowded your vision.

I’m not—I can’t—I’m going to die!

“Sweetheart?” Tyler’s voice echoed in the entryway, bouncing off kitchen walls and landing undisturbed on the living room carpet.

His boots thumped against the hardwood floors as he passed through the kitchen into the living area. Whimpering greeted him from behind the corner of the couch, tucked up against the wall. Urgency kicked his pulse. “Baby? Is that you?” He rounded the corner of the couch… and was immediately on his knees before you. “Shit! Shit, sweetheart, talk to me. Talk to me! What’s going on?”

“Tyler, I—“ The panic in your eyes as you gasped, clinging to his arm, knees tucked up to your chest and tears streaming down your cheeks, seared itself in his mind. He wouldn’t be able to unsee it for a while. “I can’t breathe. I can’t—“

“Hey, hey! It’s okay, you’re gonna be alright. Breathe with me.” He ran a hand up and down your arm, inhaling a deep, exaggerated breath, trying to still your racing heart.

But his own pulse thrummed.

What is happening? Should I call an ambulance? There’s no blood… but she can’t breathe. Shit, shit, shit!

“Follow my lead, sweetheart. C’mon.”

A sob broke out of your chest, but you followed.

In… and out. In… and out.

“Good. That’s good, baby. You’re doing good.”

He sighed in mental relief as your body slowly started following the pattern.

Okay, she can breathe. She can breathe. She’s gonna be okay.

“T-Ty?”

“Yeah?”

He dragged a thumb across the back of your hand, attempting to ground you from what he was now recognizing as a panic attack. Swimming eyes locked onto his, despair tracing a threatening line around the edges.

“Are you… are you breaking up with me?”

Tyler couldn’t have been more shocked if you’d punched him in the gut. He sputtered, mouth moving, but with no sound coming out.

Finally, he managed a choked, “What?”

“It’s just—” You swallowed, looking away. “It’s just you’ve been gone so often, staying late at work, leaving early, sometimes even before I wake up, and I thought–-I mean—” Your face crumpled, and Tyler’s heart with it. “I mean, every other relationship I’ve ever had—that’s how they did it. That’s how it always started, and I thought—” A sob, deep and resonant, wracked your body.

“Hey. Hey, shhh. Shhhh.” He pulled you close, pressing you firmly against his chest, a tender kiss planted swiftly atop your head.

Your hands fisted in his shirt as you sobbed. Tears stained the front of his flannel.

“Shhhh, baby, it’s okay. I’m not—” His hand rubbed soothingly up your back. At least, Tyler hoped it was soothing. But your tears never slowed. “I’m not breaking up with you.”

You pulled back, your face a mess of snot and tears. “Promise?”

Tyler smiled gently, wiping your face clean with his sleeve. Because if that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was. “Promise.”

You fell back into his arms, a shudder shaking your frame as you sighed.

And he just sat there with you, for as long as you needed, his message from earlier playing in his mind.

Coming home early today, baby. I love you. 💛

[batsovergotham]

Opinion in the markcest happening in the fandom🎤?

This shit so weird like wdym they fit with each other because they match each other's energy??? Ofc they match, they're the same people just a wee bit different with the obvious killing intent!! I've seen no one talk about it outside that weird area in the fandom. I walked in there and thought it couldn't be that bad right? And saw this abomination of ships and I hope it sinks

RANT TIME!!!

NO CUZ MARKCEST IS ACTUALLY DERANGED. like “they match energy!!” YEAH BABE THEY BETTER THEY’RE THE SAME DUDE. THAT’S JUST SELF-FUCKING WITH EXTRA STEPS. it’s not chemistry it’s LITERAL GENETIC MIRRORING.

they got the same face, same voice, same dna, and some of y’all saw that and went “mmm yes… soulmates.” NO. THAT’S YOU SHIPPING HIM WITH HIS CLONE BROTHER FROM TRAUMA DIMENSION #9. THAT’S INCEST. THAT’S WHAT THAT IS.

and people really out here writing full fics like “omg their trauma makes them understand each other so well” BABE. THEY HAVE THE SAME TRAUMA. BECAUSE THEY ARE. THE SAME. DUDE. this isn’t love. this is multiversal masturbation.

AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON SINISTER MARK LIKE THIS MAN ISN’T OUT HERE EATING HIS OWN VARIANTS FOR BREAKFAST. LITERALLY COMMITTING MULTIVERSAL CANNIBALISM AND Y’ALL ARE MAKING EDITS OF THEM HOLDING HANDS??? BFFR.

AND THEN THERE’S THE MARK X CECIL PEOPLE. i see y’all. i see you. and i wish i didn’t. that man is like 80 years old and evil for fun. why are y’all pairing a traumatized 18-year-old with the government cryptkeeper??? it’s actually sick. it’s not power play. it’s elder abuse. like i’m side-eyeing my screen so hard it might shatter. like be fr. that’s not forbidden love. that’s HR violation fanfic.

what’s worse is NONE of this existed pre-show. like we were all living in peace, mark was punching aliens, minding his business, and then the fandom hit mainstream and ppl started projecting incest kinks all over it like it’s game of thrones. y’all are not well.

i’m sorry but if you’re shipping mark with mark, or mark with cecil, i’m legally obligated to call the authorities and schedule you a group exorcism. log off. touch grass. read a book that isn’t your cursed ao3 drafts. please. enough. this fandom used to be punching aliens and crying over dads and now it’s just incest soup with a sprinkle of elder abuse. shut it down. send it to hell.

ー 🦇

[hrrtshape]

hi ema it’s the anon with all the hogwarts questions 🙈 i have yet another. this is a real and serious question. this is something i was thinking about a lot the last time i watched harry potter. ok so hogwarts is HUGE. like huge huge huge. but it doesn’t seem like there’s many students. like in the first film when they’re doing the sorting ceremony, there’s barely any kids there. and then they’re being split up into 4. so how many students per year group? and is it equal? or is there like tons of gryffindors and barely any ravenclaws? even tho the great hall is big, if there’s 7 year groups then surely they can’t all fit in there. also when it comes to classes, is it all the gryffindors with all the slytherins or is there too many so they’d have to split it into groups. so you’d have a class with group 1 gryffindor with group 2 slytherin or something. i’m rambling so sorry if it makes no sense i was just thinking about what i’d wanna script, it just looks like there’s barely any students. unless different ages have dinner at different times or something. anyway thank u😭😭😭😭😭🫠

this is actually a real question. like a serious academic inquiry. i have written deranged notes about this exact thing.

SO. yes, hogwarts is way too big for the number of students shown in the movies. like, we’re talking a literal castle with towering corridors, massive empty spaces, secret passages, and like, four kids per house per year??? be so real.

in my dr, it’s waayyy more logical. each year group is around 100-120 students total, which is 30ish per house. it’s still not a huge school, but it makes way more sense when you think about dormitories, classes, and how the great hall actually needs to be that big. and no, it’s not always an even split. some years will have more ravenclaws, some will have barely any hufflepuffs. the sorting hat doesn’t do quotas.

for classes, it’s definitely split. not every gryffindor is taking potions with every slytherin. it’s in groups, so like, you might have charms with half the ravenclaws, and transfiguration with a different mix of hufflepuffs. this also explains why some people barely know kids in other houses. if you never have class with them, they’re just random faces in the halls. (excluding social butterflies and intermixed groups)

the great hall does fit everyone, but it’s packed, and people get territorial about their spots. you’d think house tables are just casual seating? BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ. people have their assigned unassigned seats and if you sit in the wrong place, prepare for glares.

and i love the idea of different year groups eating at different times, but it doesn’t happen. mealtime is chaos and prefects (like me that one time) are one bad day away from walking out forever.

[jazzthatonewriterchick]

DRABBLE: HE & YOU ON WASH DAY 🫧 (18+) (JJK) (For Black!Fem!Readers)

Writer’s Note: I came up with this little Drabble after seeing a video of a Black girl teaching her white BF how to wash, moisturize, derange & do her hair. It was soooo CUTE & stuck in the back of my head, so I decided to let my inspiration flow. Thank God too cuz i realize i haven’t written a Drabble in literally FOREVER. I’ll make an effort to put out more before 2025 comes. I hope y’all enjoy!

I also tried to incorporate different types of Black hairstyles, textures & types for each character. All comments are welcome on front (but keep it respectful). Thank you & again, enjoy! -Jazz 🥰

*******

GOJO

This man swears he knows what he’s doing.

You’ll admit that Gojo is good at everything: singing, dancing, gaming, cooking, fighting, yapping…especially yapping. He’s also good at being a boyfriend. He is the most attentive, affectionate, loving man you’ve ever met and you’re so grateful to have him—the handsome, sexy, popular Gojo Satoru—as your partner.

He manages to help you with everything else you don’t have enough time to get to or are having trouble with, such as cooking and cleaning. What’s the difference between that and washing your hair, he wonders? When you tell him that your hair is much different and requires a traditional regime that could last HOURS, Gojo just waves you off.

“Baby, c’mon,” he scoffs, holding you in his lap and squeezing you to him as if you’ll disappear. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m good at everything. You think I can’t help you out with your pretty hair?” He gives you a big, confident, gigawatt smile that makes you melt.

“You sure?” You ask, your arms wrapped around his neck as he places his hands on your hips. He rocks you in his arms like you’re his baby…which you are. He always shows that any chance he gets. “‘Cause it’s a job, ‘Tarou. My hair isn’t like yours.”

Gojo scoffs, running a hand through the maze of dark kinky twists that is your hair. “Obviously,” he chuckles. “And I love that. I love your hair and I wanna help you take care of it! C’mon, what’s the rocket science in washin’ hair?”

But that self-assurance and cockiness quickly fades when you show him all the products you use for your hair, explaining each one in great detail. Then you show him the proper way to wash your hair which results in him getting water all over himself and the floor. Then, once you’re done, you try to show him how to detangle, moisturize, and cornrow your hair with a comb but to also rely on your fingers to do the work.

By the time you finish, you do most of the work while Gojo sits there looking like you just tried to explain to him why the Earth is flat. Poor baby’s blue eyes are so wide that you’re afraid they’ll roll out of his skull. He is down in the dumps afterward, snuggling into your chest. “I’m sorry, babe,” he mutters into your boobs. “I fucked up. I’m no good at this shit.”

You coo to him, running a hand through his white locks. “Satoru, baby, it’s not a big deal—“

“Yes the fuck it is!” He protests, sitting up to look at you. “You’re my girlfriend! I should know how to do your hair! But don’t worry; I’m gonna learn all about this if it fuckin’ kills me.”

And he makes you hold him to that. Not the type to give up or give in, Gojo spends the next week learning everything there is to know about Black hair: your type of hair; how to take care of it; if creams or oils work best to keep it moisturized; how to cornrow for beginners, etc. You let him drag you to the hair supply store to buy products and practice on you, giggling to yourself about how cute he is trying to do all of this for you.

After two weeks, you and Gojo go for round two. This time, you let him take the reins washing your hair. He is attentive and delicate with your hair, his long fingers scrubbing and massaging the shampoo in. You find yourself sighing at the feeling, melting at his touch. “You like that, baby?” He asks among the running water.

Chuckling when you hum in agreement, he presses a kiss to the back of your neck as you stand bend over the sink. “Y’know, I could always relax you more with somethin’ else,” he whispers.

That’s when you feel his very obvious hard dick pressing against your ass. You gasp, reaching back to swat him. “Gojo!” You whine. “You freak!”

“What?” He protests, grinning. “Ya can’t blame me for gettin’ hard by this! You look hot with your natural hair, babe, and runnin’ my hands through it is even better. It’s so soft and pretty, like you!” He grinds his hips into your ass, giving you a feel of the hot bulge pressing against his sweatpants. And you know he’s free-balling, the slut. No boxers at all!

“Y’know,” he says, his voice sultry and teasing, “all I have to do is pull these little shorts down and—“

“Uh-uh!” You shout, tossing some soapy water at him. He dodges it effortlessly. “Not while you’re supposed to be helpin’ me, asshole! Now maybe if you do a good job with my hair, we can do somethin’ about your very big problem.” You bend over the sink again, giggling when you brush your ass against Gojo’s hard dick and emit a groan from him.

And ‘do a good job’ he does, surprisingly. After you wash and condition your hair with his help, Gojo sits you down between his long legs and towel dries your hair before helping you successfully moisturize and plat it in small, wet cornrows going down your scalp.

This takes about an hour and during it all, Gojo is patient and loving with your hair. He detangles each knot with a comb, delicately threads each strand of hair, and doesn’t complain about how long it takes.

And you fall more in love with him during that hour.

Once done, he sits on the edge of the bed like a patient dog waiting for its treat while you admire his work in the mirror. After a few seconds, you slowly turn to him and smile. “Not bad,” you comment. “Not bad at all.” He breaks out into a gigantic grin. “I told you!” He laughs before yanking you over.

You giggle as you fall into him, straddling his lap. “Now, what’s about you doin’ somethin’ about my ‘very big’ problem?” He whispers, grinding his hips up into yours. Sure enough, he’s still hard. Pressing a slow kiss to his lips that steals your breath, you sneak your hands down to untie his sweats. “Let me show you,” you whisper. “After all, you did just a good job for me.”

Many hours later, after making him cum his brains out down your throat and putting you into the mattress, Gojo wants to be part of your wash days ALL THE TIME now.

CHOSO

This cutie patootie wants to know everything and anything about your beautiful hair. He loves it soooo much!

He loves staring at it and watching how it glows in the sunlight. He loves how bouncy your curls are when you walk. He loves running his hands through it when you kiss (though most of the time, he’s afraid to touch it in fear of ruining it).

Any time he catches you sitting in the bathroom doing your hot oil treatment, he asks so many questions:

“Why do you need to wear that big-ass helmet?”

“If you use hair grease and hair oil, won’t that oversaturate your hair?”

“How do you do this every single day? Doesn’t that get tiring?”

“Why don’t you let me help you one day?”

You love your hair too. It took you years to grow and maintain it, so you take your long, bouncy curls very seriously. So you have your own regime, especially when drying and setting your hair once it’s clean.

When you explain all of this to Choso at the hair supply store, the man looks like you’re trying to explain another language to him. “What does ‘set’ mean?” He asks as you drag him to the hair care aisles. “What does that have to do with washing your hair?”

“No, no, no,” you hurriedly say, searching the shelves for that one scalp grease that you always use. You ran out, so that’s why you dragged Choso out of the house to go get more plus a new bonnet and a comb because your favorite one broke.

“That comes AFTER I wash my hair. ‘Setting’ means sectioning and putting my hair in curlers so they come out the way you like.”

Choso stops with his hand still in yours, standing between some shelves of creams and some shelves of shampoo. You turn to him, confused. “What? Baby, you agreed to help me! We’re losin’ daylight here!”

You motion to the outside where the sun is shining and the sky is blue. “The way I like?” Choso parrots. You blink, perplexed. “You said you set your hair so it comes out how I like,” he clarifies. “Do you not like it when your hair comes out another way?”

He cocks his head to the side, his pierced brow quirked slightly. You feel yourself grow hot with embarrassment in his black hoodie that you “borrowed” (stole, but he gave it to you anyway, loving how it looks on you instead) from him.

“Uh…w-well, no girl likes it when her hair doesn’t come out right,” you mutter. “I just like it when my hair looks pretty…y’know…sexy.”

Choso’s expression softens, making him look so much like a soft-eyed teddy bear despite his tattoos and piercings. He is aware of your slight love-hate relationship with your hair when it’s not ‘hair-ing’ right.

You love it when your curls are the right length and bounce. It makes you feel so feminine and sexy. Sexy enough to let Choso pull on them during sex and run his fingers through it during a sloppy, slow make-out session.

Not when it’s frizzy. Not when you just get it wet and it shrinks back to its natural itty-bitty kinks. Not when it’s—

“Stop it.” As if he can hear your thoughts, Choso puts his hands on your shoulders and gently coaxes you to look up at him. Into his pretty, gray eyes. “You know damn well I love your hair no matter what it looks like,” he softly says. “You should too, babydoll. Don’t sweat that shit.”

He takes your hand and puts it on his head, right between his spiked ponytails. “You think I give a fuck about what my hair looks like all the time?” He asks, smirking.

You cluck your tongue against the roof of your mouth. “Yeah,” you mutter, “but you’re a guy! And Black hair is much different than yours. A-And there’s so many different types and—Mmph!”

You moan in surprise as Choso’s lips suddenly press against yours, silencing you. His lip ring pushes against your bottom lip, cool and enticing. It grounds you.

When you pull away, he brushes your nose with his in an Eskimo kiss—one thing he only does in private because of how “cutesy” it is. “You feel better now?” He asks. You nod, winded from his kiss.

“You gonna let me buy you your shit and not have a panic attack in the middle of the store?” He asks. Once again, you nod, a smile stretching onto your lips.

“And you’re gonna remember you’re my pretty little girlfriend no matter what, right?” He whispers, sliding a hand against your ass as you both start to walk again.

You nod, wrapping your arm around his waist. “Mmm-hmm,” you shyly hum. “And you’re my hot little boyfriend.” You slide your hand down to his ass, squeezing it.

Choso blushes hot red, tsking. “I’m not little,” he grunts, making you laugh.

GETO

Admittedly, Geto has never thought too much about hair….that is until he met you.

He couldn’t get enough of your beautiful, long braids that swayed in the breeze. How they accentuated all of the shapes, lines, and features of your pretty face. How you wore it up, down, twisted…even braided! He didn’t even know you could braid braids! But when you showed up on your first date with the black coils in one big French braid, he was sold as yours and yours alone.

He didn’t know you could wash braids too without taking them out, but now he does. When he comes home from running errands (gym and picking up some lunch), he hears the shower running and you humming to Giveon, which means you're still washing your hair.

He smiles, placing the paper bag of stir fry and your favorite drink on the counter. “Baby!” he calls. “Food’s here!” He takes off his shoes and puts them at the door, just about ready to get some water after his vigorous workout when he hears something fall and your pretty voice yelp in pain.

“Ow!” you shriek. Geto quickly springs into action, running up the steps in his polo socks and gym shorts. He nearly slips across the floor and breaks his neck when he gets to the bathroom. “Baby?” he calls. “Baby, what happened? Did you fall?”

You're standing in the shower in your soaked bra and panties, sudsy, foamy shampoo running down your braids. “No, worse!” you groan, holding your left eye. “I got shampoo in my eye! God fuckin’ dammit, that burns!”

You try to grab a towel, but Geto stops you. “Uh-uh, don’t move,” he orders. “Let me do it." He helps you out of the running shower and holds your wet braids back for you. "Lean your back head.” You do so and he wets a washrag before dabbing it on your eye.

After a minute, your eye stops stinging and you're able to open it. Geto dabs away water and soap dripping down the side of your face. “Bad hair wash day, I’m assuming?”

You nod, huffing in embarrassment and frustration. “One of my braids smacked me in the face and I almost went blind. This is usually a messy job, so I do ‘em in the shower.”

Geto stares at you in confusion, puzzled by what you mean. “So you...wash your braids?” he curiously asks. “How does that work?” He looks like a puppy being taught a new trick and you find it so endearing.

“Oh, you just massage the shampoo in the scalp and down the braids,” you explain, motioning to your scalp. “It gets the gunk from hair product and dirt out. Then I put my braids down to let the water wash everything out.” You sigh, rubbing your sore forearm. “My arms are so tired though,” you groan.

You've been at this for almost an hour now since Geto left to run errands and have barely gotten through it yet. Then you still have to blowdry your braids to make sure your entire scalp is dry which makes another whole hour. Noticing the stressful look on your face, Geo decides he doesn' like i and wans o help his baby a any cos. “Lemme help you then.”

You blink a him, watching as he takes off his socks and begins washing his hands under he showerhead. “What?!” you exclaim. “Sugu, baby, no, i-it’s fine! It’s not a two-person job and you’ll get your clothes all wet and—“

“Who said anythin’ about clothes?” he cuts in. He gives you a humored smile as he begins to peel off his white tank top. “That’s a silly thought, but a cute one.” Flashing his pearly whites at you, he strips off his shirt, revealing his perfectly-defined, toned upper and lower torsos. Your eyes roam over his squeezable pecs, both nipples pierced, big, inked arms, washboard abs, and cut V-line and sides littered in tattoos. He’s truly a beautiful specimen, your boyfriend.

As he tosses his shirt to the side, you suddenly don’t want to wash your hair anymore. Instead, you’d like to wash Geto’s delicious body, see it drip with water and soap, and then do it all over again because you end up fucking each other instead. “B-but…your hair,” you weakly protest. “It’ll get all wet.”

Geto smiles, pulling a hairband out of his pocket and tying his long hair up in a bun. That only arouses you more. “Hush, my love,” he coos, pressing a finger to your lips. You resist the urge to suck on it. “Don’t worry about me—worry about these gorgeous braids.” He takes your hand and guides you into the shower. While you stand near the running water, he stands behind you, making your entire body feel hot and tingly. “Just tell me what to do.”

The hair-washing process only happens for about ten minutes. As soon as you feel Geto’s thick fingers massaging your scalp and running through your braids, gentle and careful, your pussy flips into overdrive and gushes in your panties. Soon, your undies come off, Geto’s shorts come down, and hands are roaming over body parts and skin. Lips are on lips, tongues are swirling together, his hands are on your ass, and yours are all over him.

Soon, that somehow leads to him picking you up and fucking you against the shower wall, your moans swallowed up by the water and Giveon playing on your phone. His cock drives deliciously in and out of you as his hips grind against yours, your legs and arms tightly wrapped around him. “I didn’t know this was a part of your routine, baby,” he pants in your ear. “But if it is, count me the fuck in.” His hand is in your hair, your braids wrapped around his fist. “Want me to tug ‘em harder, mama?”

“Yes!” You desperately shout. “Yes, Sugu, please! I’m so close!” You can feel your cunt spasming around him, your hand slipped between you and him to rub your clit in time with his thrusts. Geto picks up the pace, his yummy moans and grunts filling the steamy shower as he pounds your pussy against the shower wall. “Pull my hair,” he pleadingly says. “Do it hard, baby. I’m ‘bout to cum too.”

You do as he says and dig your fingers into his hair, tugging on the wet, black locks. He groans at the feeling, his eyes fluttering shut and his handsome face screwed in ecstasy. Seeing him like that makes you cum instantly, a high-pitched moan of his name leaving your lips.

His own orgasm is triggered too and quickly pulls out before cumming in unison with you all over your thighs and the shower wall. His lips swoop yours up in a hot, slow tongue-kiss that makes your intense orgasm that much more explosive as your body loses tension and you feel like mush.

Finally, Geto pulls away, his eyes hooded and a lazy smile on his face. “Oh, look,” he chuckles. He points to your wet braids and his dripping hair. “All clean.”

NANAMI

He can’t get enough of your Afro.

Seriously. He stares at it any chance he gets. On his free time, when he isn’t working or telling Gojo to leave him alone, Nanami is calculating the circumference of your perfectly-round, full Afro and how long it takes you to get it in such a perfect, round shape. How does it defy gravity the way it does? Does it ever deflate? What do you do to make it so soft? He often wonders this when you allow him to touch it. He feels so blessed that you bestow such an honor to him.

He realizes later that maintaining such a beautiful hairstyle is a lot of work. One day, on a boring Sunday that is meant as your “self-care” day, he watches you as you sit near the kitchen sink in a chair, your thick hair sectioned into four parts with scrunchies. He’d laugh at such the cute yet silly look you’ve got going on if you didn’t look so sad and defeated doing it. You’ve only gotten through one part, washing it by hand with shampoo.

Wanting to make things easier for his love, Nanami moves behind you and wraps his arms around you from behind. “You look so tired, my love,” he sighs. “Why don’t you let me help you?” You look up at him, confused. Nanami has watched you wash your hair a couple of times to know what you do and what you use.

He first coaxes you to stand up and turns the chair around so you’re facing away from the sink. After filling the sink up with warm water, he rolls his sleeves up to his forearms, much to your liking, and lathers his hands up in your favorite lavender-mint-rosemary shampoo. He takes one part of hair out of your scrunchie and proceeds to scrub it, lathering it in the soap. He does the same to the others, massaging your scalp in the process.

Your eyes flutter closed at the feeling of his skillful and careful hands in your hair, your body relaxing in your chair. “Oh,” you moan. You haven’t had anyone wash your hair for you since your mother when you were young. And to have your partner, who isn’t Black, do such a good and careful job with your hair is such a sweet gesture of your kind of love language.

“That feels nice?” He asks, happy to hear the sound. You press your lips into a thin line, humiliated by the sound slipping out of your mouth. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he chuckles. “I want you to relax. Wash days should be relaxing, not…” He pauses, searching for the right word.

“Fuckin’ stressful?” You offer, sighing as the warm water cascades over your scalp. “Yeah, but you’re not the only carryin’ around a big ass ball of hair on your head.” Nanami laughs, pressing. Kiss to your forehead. “A beautiful ball of hair, actually.” He works the water through your hair from root to tip, taking gentle care of each strand of your hair. You melt into his touch, falling in love with him deeper and deeper.

Once he finishes washing your hair, he empties the sink of all of the water and tells you to lean back so your hair can drip into the sink. “This actually kinda feels like a spa,” you giggle. Maybe you can give me a massage after this.” Nanami chuckles, flinging the water and suds off of his hands before chastely kissing you on the lips. “Let me get the towel.”

You keep your eyes closed as he leaves and quickly returns with a towel. First, he lathers your hair up in conditioner, gently massaging your scalp with the thick, creamy, floral-scented substance. Then, suddenly, you feel something cold over your eyes and hear the sound of relaxing flute music playing from somewhere. “What are you doin’, sir?” You giggle.

You feel Nanami’s lips ghost over your ear, sending chills down your spine. “Shh, no talking at the spa” he whispers. His hands are firm yet gentle as they press into your temples while your hair drips into the sink. “Can I get you a drink, miss? Perhaps you’d want massage here?” He begins to trail his fingers down your neck, each place his fingers touch leaving a trail of fire. “Or maybe…here?”

He trails down to your shoulders, giving you a firm rub. As he does, your nipples harden beneath your sports bra and your sweats suddenly feel entirely too tight. “You’re getting warmer,” you purr. A soft, seductive hum comes from Nanami’s throat that drives you insane as his hands trail down to your chest.

“You mean…here?” He gently cascades his hands over your breasts, brushing against your hard nipples beneath the thin material of your sports bra.

His hands then go back up to your shoulders, teasing you. You whimper, desperate for attention. “That’s not fair,” you whine. “You’ve got me all warm now.” Your boyfriend chuckles, his fingers kneading your shoulder muscles. “I thought that was the point.” He suddenly pauses. “Or…do you mean…”

You take the cold compress (which you find is an eye mask) off of your eyes to look up at your man and slowly move your hand to cup his cock. To your joy, you find that he is semi-hard. Nanami tuts but keeps your hand on his dick. “Miss, this is very improper for a spy,” he says, mock-offended. He leans down toward you, his minty breath fanning across your face. “But I suppose I could make an exception for you.”

He leans in closer, closer, and you think he’s going to kiss you. You lean up, desperate for his lips on yours. “After I condition, dry, moisturize, and grease your hair,” he adds. He turns the water on again and puts the eye mask back on your eyes. “What?!” You squeak. “Kento, nooo, pleeeease!” Your pussy throbs in desperate, insisting that he touches you right here, right now.

Nanami presses a finger to your lips, silencing you. “No whining,” he says. “Besides, all good things come to those who wait, my love.” He presses a kiss to your forehead before you feel the warm water on your hair rinsing out the conditioner. “Now enjoy your spa session.”

You do. You enjoy all of the work Nanami does on your hair, including what you instruct him to do. But truth be told, you enjoy the work he does on your body two hours later in the comfort of your bedroom.

With your hair safely wrapped up in a towel and bonnet for extra protection, your leg is tossed over Nanami’s broad shoulder as his hips piston into yours, his cock stroking your insides and his fingers teasing your clit. “Told you good things come to those who wait,” he grunts. “Are you gonna cum for me now?”

You vigorously shake your head, staring up with heart eyes at the handsome blonde above you. “N-No!” You whimper. “Not until you say, Daddy! I promise!”

Nanami smiles and presses a kiss to your ankle that nearly has you combusting all over the sheets. “That’s my good, pretty girl.” Your boyfriend has now become a new and important addition to your wash days.

[tubbytarchia]

Thoughts on the dynamic between TIES Tango and BB Jimmy? Or even the silly rivalry they have in SL? There’s just so much adorable fluffy potential there and I’m just 💭

- 🧚🏼‍♀️

YOU'RE RIGHT THERE IS AND I LOVE THEM. SL ranchers are SO cute and precious its off the charts. Limited Life however...

Ok drawing that hurt a bit so I'm immediately following up with this

Limited Life is so carefree in general it's SO fun and probably the least angst material out of any of the Life series to me (of course there is still plenty, can't underestimate the traffic fandom's ability to find angst in everything) including Tango and Jimmy. They're so fun and you're right that it's a lot of fluff potential, mostly because Jimmy being a "bad boy" is so funny. BUT THE, MAN. TH The fact that this is the one after DL, after Jimmy so desperately wanted to apologize to Tango for how they went out and who knows if he got to do that or not. I love the idea of them reuniting in some temporary afterlife game or dark void following their deaths, but also what if they didn't get to talk... maybe it was only Tango's distant messages "you're still here? It's over. Go home. Go" that reached him and then he just didn't dare to talk about it other than the one time he instinctually called him "rancher" again. I can't help but be filled with angst when I think about LimL ranchers but I trust that where there is angst, hurt/comfort is sure to follow.... If not then I just die I guess

The bad boy sunglasses are very convenient to hide the look with which he gazes upon Tango from a distance... But then oop Tango hops through the nether portal on top of bad boy mansion and Jimmy decides to go for it, to try and harken back to how they used to be to gauge how Tango will react when he goes "The boogie's being chosen, you're here with us now, we have to look into each other's eyes!" (paraphrasing) and then he's like "oh Impulse is here too" lmao and then that's just kinda it. And then TIES blows up bread bridge and auughhghhh you know??? I'm so bad at expressing how I feel, sorry this is a ramble. But I love them so very dearly and I could absolutely imagine inconspicuous moments between them. Like whenever I think of potential LimL rancher fluff my mind goes to this one fanfic about Jimmy being sleep deprived and he just kinda ends up at TIES and Tango puts him to sleep. Stuff like that

And idk what more to say about Secret Life. Their little rivalry is so funny and literally idk if it's the fanart that has absolutely fucked with my head but every time I think about them I imagine them awkwardly flirting on complete accident and just being kind of weird but. very lovable. They had only two notable interactions and those two interactions left me permanently deranged

ANYWAY THANKS FOR THE ASK ANON

[thecr0w]

Home

p.1, ~1k words

ghoap/nanny reader, in which shes roped in to care for a poorly johnny who just wants his big family :(

[tags/cw; dubcon, noncon, breeding, use of alcohol, implied death, threats of violence, overall weird and creepy johnny, actually deranged johnny, simon’s off his rocker, blackmailing, ect.]

AAAAAAAAA i’ve been thinking about this for literally so long, im sorry it’s so so short i just needed to get it out :( it’s my first big-girl fic, and the first part. thanks @ceilidho for letting me spit this idea to you! btw, NOT beta-read. im sorry.

It was a gloomy day when you got the news you would lose your job, something about budget cuts and lack of funding. It was gloomy again, a month later when you found yourself short on rent. Cold, cloudy and gray when you got your eviction notice. No warnings, just a handwritten letter commanding your evacuation in a months time. Signed by your landlord. Nights of manic panic, rushing to pack and overwhelmed with the prospect of selling all your worldly possessions to afford a shitty motel room seemed to fly by.

The dim light of your phone illuminated your dark bedroom, scrolling through a less than ideal advertising website, reduced to this after exhausting all other resources. Rejection email after rejection email piled up in your inbox, fueling your anxiety like no other.

You scanned the listings, some odd and some underpaying labor jobs littered across the page. Suddenly, bold black letters flashed across your screen. It states simply, ‘Live-in nanny needed to assist first time dad. Give me a ring.’ This has to be a scam. It’s too good to be true, a job and a place to stay? A smile cracks across your face as you click on the listing. It offers no other information, just a phone number at the bottom of the advert. You think for a second, then decide that you’re out of options completely and this is better than a concrete pillow. Your heart flutters as you punch the numbers in, hesitating just a beat before pressing the green ‘call’ button.

It rings for about a minute, and hope exits your body with every monotone mechanical sound. Voicemail. Fuck. You hang up, groaning as you fall back onto your bed and allow your phone to drift from your clammy hands to your chest. The droning sound of a fan overtakes your thoughts.

Your phone vibrates loudly on your sternum, jolting you upright. The number feels unfamiliar, but you’re certain it’s the one from the nanny listing. You accept the call.

“Yeah?” A gruff voice on the other end greeted, followed by a loud blowing sound, as if he were smoking. You could smell the cigarette through the phone.

“Oh, hi! I’m calling about the nanny ad, I’m very-“

“Have any experience?” He cut you off, blowing sound accompanying his accented voice again.

“Oh yes, I-“

“Right. Meet me at that coffee place ‘round the corner of 5th in an hour.”

The line went silent.

“Um.. okay, see you soon.” you called after, to which you were met with no response. A look at your home screen revealed he had already hung up.

Thirty minutes later, you began your walk to the designated shop. Maybe being early would show some initiative for the job, or maybe it would look pathetic. Your mother always said to show up early to everything, anyway.

The coffee shop is quiet, few patrons sprinkled few and far between the tables and booths. The smell of brewing coffee is so strong it makes you nauseous. The back of your neck tingles and you can feel eyes burning through your skull. You turn to look, and a pair of brown eyes meet yours.

God, if looks could kill.

A tall, wide man tears into you, unmoving in his gaze. Jesus, not even a blink. He sits almost a foot taller than the back of the booth, black surgical mask barely covering an ugly scar etched across his cheek. His hood shadows his face, dark hoodie tight over thick biceps.

Is this guy real?

You blink, gaze faultering and searching for a break from contact. Uneasiness floods your stomach and you contemplate just walking back out and going to bed. He whistles quickly as soon as you turn your head back, motioning with his finger to sit. You follow.

“You must be the dad about the nanny gig? I didn’t catch your name, sorry.”

“Didn’t give it to you.”

You inhale and nod.

“Well, we’re both here a little early.” You look him over in an attempt to find something to connect on. “I like your tattoos.” you try, suddenly finding your hands awkward on the table.

“Can you handle a baby?”

You nod, eyes shooting up to meet his. He hasn’t stopped looking directly into your eyes, and it’s making you nervous. You haven’t seen him blink yet.

“What about a man? Cooking, cleaning? Can you keep the place nice?”

“I can, I used to babysit my neighbors, little cousins. I have a clean record, I don’t drink, and I can keep a nice house.”

He stays quiet for a minute too long, and you’re ready to accept defeat.

“You can have the guest room, I’ll send you your pay at the end of the week. Here’s my number, call me when you’re all packed up and I’ll pick you up.”

“Today?”

“Before next week.”

He slides a napkin across the table to you, smudged ink scribbled over the thin paper. Before you can ask anything else, he’s already sliding out of the booth. He groans loudly as he stretches popping joints, arms extended high in the air. You catch a glimpse of his hairy belly when his hoodie rides up. His eyes meet yours when you hastily look away, and you could swear a smirk hides under that little mask of his.

“Is that all? I’m hired?”

He nods and walks away, never looking back as he exits the cafe. A shiver erupts up your spine, an uncomfortable churning presses in your stomach. Maybe it’s just too weird, maybe you’re being too weird, maybe you’re overthinking something so simple- but he wouldn’t stop staring. A low hiss emanates from the small tv mounted on the wall, catching your attention.

A nature documentary. A panther sits atop a tree, staring attentively at something small on the grassy earth below. A deer flicks its ears, some primal instinct allowing it to be somewhat aware of danger. It flicks its head around, scanning its surroundings for the source. The panther pounces, sinking its sharp fangs into the fragile neck of the doe beneath it.

You look away as the deer begins to bleat pathetically.

[friccafracc]

I’m so sorry bc this is gonna sound insane, but for literal months I have been plagued by the image of Strandy in the situation where Jerma had a UV dick show up on his wall. I cannot stress how VIVID the image of him yelling “get this DICK outta my room!” is to me.

Tried to send this like. Three times over the months but it felt way too deranged so I’m hiding behind anon LOL, I love your art, sorry to cast this blight upon your inbox.

no because this WOULD happen to him specifically...

[kaiserposting]

Michael Kaiser, Alexis Ness — Dog Walking

PAIRING: Michael Kaiser/Reader/Alexis Ness WORD COUNT: 3.2k TYPE: Humor, Bad flirting (it's so bad I don't know if i can call it flirting in good faith), Bad matchmaking (there was an attempt), Rivalry WARNING(S): Canon-typical football derangement, canon-typical behavior EDIT: This got a continuation, yay. And an add-on

Kaiser got it in his head that he has taken a liking to you. This is great and all, not like Ness is gritting his teeth and clenching his fists and getting angry or anything, but- okay, he is.

An obvious reason for his displeasure would be jealousy, but that’s not quite it. Ness thinks it would be entitled and insolent of him to feel any type of way about Kaiser’s personal affairs, so he hasn’t even entertained the notion. The problem is entirely different.

Just like everyone else in Blue Lock, you’re… Kaiser-opposed? Is that the right way to word it? Anyway, the point is, your shitty personality is making his job really hard. Which leads the three of you to this current situation.

“Ow! Ness, what the hell is your problem?!” you shriek, after having tripped and fell. The only reason your face isn’t attached to the floor fight now is because you softened the blow with your elbow.

“I didn’t mean it- I’m so sorry!”

“You didn’t mean it? You literally did it on purpose.”

This isn’t how it should’ve played out, though.

You were supposed to fall right into Kaiser’s arms, but you landed about a step away from him. They even practiced this routine with the others! Granted, no one agreed to it and was rather subjected to it whenever in Ness and Kaiser’s general vicinity, and, no, it didn’t work all the time, but they were just getting the hang of it. (Thankfully, no one sustained any serious injuries, apart from bearing some mental scars after hearing Kaiser say ‘Don’t go falling for me now’ in a wannabe suave tone.)

“Yeah, Ness, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Kaiser adds, before moving to crouch down and help you with a smidge of concern in his expression.

Ness’s eyes widen at the betrayal. Kaiser is such a fake bitch sometimes. Not like he’s going to do anything about it, or even that he minds, but seriously? No shame or decorum is on display here.

You don’t buy it, slapping his hands away. “I bet you put him up to it,” you say, before standing up all by yourself. Then you twist your leg around back and forth for a bit, as if to check how well it’s working, before you eventually lift it high up in the air. “Listen, you tie-dyed toerags.”

Ness flinches because what kind of way to address someone is this? Kaiser crosses his arms, shiteating grin receding into a little frown.

“I’m at my most divine when scoring a goal. You see this?” Your foot is now hovering near their faces while you stretch. This… What is it? A flex? A display? Whatever it is that you’re doing right now, Ness finds it unnerving. “It’s what I use to score. If you did something to take that ability away from me, you’d get pretty bad karma, you know? Angels would cry. Believe me.”

Ness tugs on Kaiser’s sleeve — to remind him he’s supposed to respond instead of just stare at you with a blank, creepy look on his face — and, as filler, says, “You’re very, um, flexible.”

“Yeah,” you say, moving into an even more convoluted position. “I have many attractive qualities. Deserving of being a superstar ace, you know? Dump Kaiser. Pass to me. You’re way too good to play second fiddle, Ness. With me, you won’t be stuck in a Tweedlecum and Tweedlepee dynamic.”

“What?! You- you- you, you, you, yooooou-?! What are you talking about?! I’d never betray him! I’m not joining your circus, clown! Unbelievable! Learn your place already. You never learn,” Ness says in a jumble. For some reason, he’s more offended than Kaiser is.

Here’s the thing about you — you’re insane. A has-an-interesting-psychological-file type of crazy. A hollow-inner-world type of crazy.

A Ness-loves-it type of crazy, as objectionable as he is acting to your offer.

“Calm down. No need to get your panties in a twist over some shitty trash talk,” says Kaiser, placing his hand on Ness’s head, forcing him to lower himself in a slight bow in front of you. Finally, you quit your bizarre movements and assume a more proper stance, while Kaiser leans in closer to you, shifting his gaze in your direction. This leaves Ness to watch you two engage in a round of charged glaring… again. Which is always compromising, but then Kaiser has to run his fingers through his hair, too. “You’re just like a chihuahua that hasn’t warmed up to its owner yet. Your barking doesn’t faze me.”

Your eye twitches at the analogy, face scrunching in an ugly way. “The hell did you just say to me? If I catch you somewhere Ego can’t see me, I’ll give you the beating of a lifetime.”

Instead of responding in a normal way, Kaiser points his finger in your face, almost poking you, twirls it around in a circle, which makes you furrow your brows even harder if possible as you scrutinize him like he’s a lower life form.

“See? Doesn’t bite. Totally harmless,” Kaiser says with a lilt of amusement. Then he swings an arm around Ness’s shoulders and turns him around before pulling him along so they can get away from you.

His tone is convincing enough to give off the impression of winning this verbal spat. However, Ness can’t help but notice that they’re speed walking.

___

When Ness turns around, you’re leaning on the bench with your foot, elbow resting on your knee. He lets out an undignified scream, taking a step back, startled, and even drops his water bottle. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! How come you didn’t make a noise? What are you?”

Kaiser regards the commotion with not even a sliver of curiosity and instead grins after nodding at you in greeting. “Look who came crawling back searching for my company, Ness.”

“I was thinking about that stuff you told me yesterday,” you say.

“Really? And what thrilling conclusion did you come to?” he asks, with sarcastic emphasis on the word ‘thrilling.’

“I’m going to spend my points from goals on taking a day off. Come along with me and we’re gonna fight, preferably in front of a big audience that can watch me humiliate you. By the way, it's a duel, so you can’t decline.”

“Wow, you’re asking me out on a date? Since when are you so adorable? I guess I just can’t reject you when you’re being vulnerable.”

“No one likes delusional men, Kaiser. I’d rather embalm myself and then desecrate my own corpse.”

Kaiser appears to find this amusing or in some way adjacent to flirting because his smile becomes a touch more irritating, but also a bit incredulous. “Crazy fucking bastard. You’ve got unique ways of pretending you’re not into me, though. It’s entertaining.”

“Your mouth is like a dirty urinal. You swear like a preteen who just found out what sixty-nine means, worry about that.”

Kaiser stares at you in shock, jaw hanging slightly open. In your head, you consider this a huge win, since it’s the first time you’ve visibly put him off.

“Keep gaping at me, I might just take a piss.”

“H-How dare you?!” Ness lunges at you, and the only thing to stop him from strangling you on live television — sensational, you like it — is the fact that Kaiser is holding him back by the collar. You find the sight of him swiping his fists in the air vaguely adorable. “How can you say these things? Just in general, let alone to Kaiser?”

You observe him in mild surprise for a second and the sincerity in your expression makes it all the more infuriating when you ask, “Oh, you’re still here?”

___

For once in his life, Ness is being very assertive. At least that’s what you think while he drags you over to their side of the cafeteria, fingers curling tight enough around your wrist to probably disturb your blood circulation.

Kaiser pulls out a chair for you when you come into view, then Ness shoves you so you’re sitting, and Kaiser pushes it back in, causing you to almost double over the table. Ness slides over some kind of fancy meal you can’t even identify in front of you. Kaiser leans down, his hair brushing against you, and then he reaches around your shoulder to aggressively stab one of the slices with a fork. With a perhaps demented smile, he declares, “We’re going to talk about strategy today,” before taking the seat next to yours.

“We’re not going to talk about strategy because I’m not one of your groupies,” you say, picking up on the conversation with ease.

Ness plops down on your other side, apparently having decided he has enough authority to lecture you. “No, no, no! This isn’t working. Isagi does whatever he wants, Kunigami does whatever he wants, you do whatever you want. It’s pure chaos on the field! No synergy! It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Join us. If you’re not following,” Kaiser adds, his arm finally receding away from you, “this is a compliment. You’re the one best suited for me, which is a big honor.”

“I have a way better idea. How about I continue doing whatever I want, and by the end of this Neo Egotist League ordeal, you two and everyone else you mentioned sing my name in a choir?”

“Ungrateful,” Ness mutters, petulant.

Kaiser grins, mocking, but also intrigued. “Are you still hanging onto the high of that goal against Barcha? Your ego is unhinged and, honestly, you’re not doing yourself any favors. Your type is always the most fun to break.”

Like he’s any different?

The score you landed, though — the one Kaiser is referencing — was what sparked his interest. You jumped in and stole the pass Isagi meant for Kunigami, securing the point right under their noses. Then, you faced Kaiser and took him by the chin like he’d done to Isagi on arrival, and even imitated his introduction, “On your knees, Bastard München,” with inconceivable amounts of smugness.

It was… interesting. Outlandish. A first. Ness berated you and Isagi together, but you kind of walked away in the middle of it without a care.

Here’s the other detail which is keeping Ness’s sanity intact (not like he’s renowned for his mental stability, but): Kaiser taking a liking to you isn’t necessarily a good thing, even if he’s treating you differently than the other competitors. It doesn’t say anything positive about your character, isn’t in any way sentimental — it’s more as if someone held up a mirror in front of him and he began obsessing over his reflection.

“I’m big and you’re small. That’s why you can’t tame me,” you say.

“He’s taller than you!” Ness defends.

“Did the voices in your head tell you that?” Kaiser asks you, and he does not acknowledge Ness’s meager attempt to upkeep his honor.

“I mean it. You think you can brute force everything and bend it to your version of reality. That’s fragile. I don’t mind falling from a high place. It kind of appeals to me, actually, you know, crawling back up, but more beautiful.”

The corners of his lips turn up in a manner you interpret as more baleful than usual. “I don’t know if you’re big or if I’m small or whatever you wanna call it, but what I know for sure is that you’re a melodramatic jerk off.”

“Anyway,” you stand up, taking the plate as you do so, “you don’t think often, so I won’t blame you for calling my internal monologue a hallucination. You can’t help it. Bye.”

___

The locker room is an environment you find ripe for picking fights in. Especially when everyone is tired after a practice match. At least the place is free of anyone besides your usual targets.

“Ness,” you say upon approaching them — they’re always together, it almost seems codependent — and then take a hold of his hand, all beguiling. Kaiser scoffs, apparently not interested in getting into it with you this once, while Ness stares at you doe-eyed. “I think it’s about time you get some dignity.”

“What kind of opening line is that?!” he asks, expression shifting from bashful to irritated.

“He’s just been even more awful to you lately and you’re still attached to his asshole like you’re a part of the human centipede.”

“You made fun of me for swearing, but look at the shit you’re saying right now.”

“I do it sparingly and with style. Please stop trying to compete where you don’t compare.” After a dismissive glance towards Kaiser, you turn your attention back to Ness, letting go of his hand to wrap an arm around his waist. “Anyway, the point is, he’s not acting very appreciative of your talent. I could treat you so much better if you passed to me. We don’t even need to entirely exclude him or anything, I’m a tolerant person.”

“I can see and appreciate Ness’s talent just fine. He’ll stay by my side no matter what.” Ness blushes because that’s kind of an intense statement to make out of nowhere? Kaiser’s fingers curl around his jawline before he pushes Ness’s head into his shoulder. “And I’m going to add you to the roster while I’m at it.”

What the fuck is even going on? Maybe the delusions of grandeur you and Kaiser seem to suffer from are becoming contagious, but it sounds like you two are fighting… over HIM? A more well-adjusted person would probably find this objectifying or otherwise demeaning, but Ness, mostly because of who he is — terminally unwanted — wonders if he’s in heaven right now.

Then again, Ness isn’t an idiot. His ignorance is willful. There’s a cap to the nonsense even he is willing to tolerate. So he lets this feeling of I’ve-never-been-happier linger for a little, your bickering fading into background noise, before he squirms away from both of you.

“I’m tired of how you guys are acting,” he calls over his shoulder.

Kaiser is gawking again. You let out an amused whistle, as if you find this development pleasing, before forcing Kaiser’s jaw closed.

“Don’t talk to me… for the rest of the day,” Ness continues, before leaving. His resolve ends on a weak note, but oh well.

“What the hell? Did Ness just reject me?” Kaiser asks, slapping off your pesky hand. “First you don’t want me, now even Ness doesn’t want me. I’m sick of this wretched place. Everything is all out of whack here.”

You burst out laughing. “Are your sensitive little feelings unable to handle a few hours without him?”

“Shut up,” says Kaiser. There isn’t enough bite in it.

“I can tell whatever tantrum you’re about to have is gonna give me secondhand embarrassment, so I’m gonna go as well.”

You’re not prepared for Kaiser to slam you into the locker and cage you in with his arms. Some vein you don’t know the name of looks very pronounced on his forehead, and you don’t think it’s supposed to be doing that?

You roll your eyes. “Take the hint, your machismo shtick isn’t doing it for me.”

“I’m not trying to make a move on you, shithead. I’m sick of your outrageous attitude as well. What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re always leaving in the middle of conversations, even ones you initiated. Do you know how rude that is? No one ever taught you some fucking manners? What’s your home life like?”

Ignoring whatever he’s even talking about — it’s going in one ear and out of the other as usual — you trail your hands over his shoulders.

“Stop trying to distract me. I’m listing out all of your personality defects.” He’s not really putting up a fight, though, doesn’t even shrug you off when you move onto caressing his neck. “We’re arguing,” Kaiser says, before leaning in to complete the kiss you were trying to pull him into, and finally his hands drop to rest on your waist.

The contact doesn’t last long, since you take the chance to side step him and swap your positions, before you push him into the locker like he’d done to you.

“Little bitch,” you say with a sneer, and then you dash towards the exit, offering a flippant wave. “I leave whenever I want to.”

What the hell!

___

“You’re unforgivable!” says Ness. What did you even do to deserve this attitude right before breakfast? “Stop messing with Kaiser’s head!”

Oh yeah, you did do that. You almost forgot.

“Good morning to you, too. Sleep well?”

Ness crosses his arms and taps his foot. He’s not very good at being intimidating, at least in a visual sense, you think. He has a total babyface. “You’re going to apologize. You’re gonna grovel for Kaiser’s forgiveness.”

“Sure, I take hurt feelings very seriously. Answer these questions for me, so I can apologize better later. Which ear were the words of hurtfulness spoken into? Is the damage he suffered permanent? Did he require a tissue for his tears?”

“I- I- I- I?!?! You piss me off so much. I don’t have the patience for this.” Ness pinches the bridge of his nose as if he needs to soothe himself after exchanging a couple of sentences with you.

“If he doesn’t have a mommy to hug him,” you continue without much of an inflection, “we can look for a surrogate.”

With uncharacteristic vice, he squeezes your shoulders, and he’s gritting his teeth, and you think he really might kill you. Maybe not right now, but at some point, this man is going to take your life. “What’s your problem? You’re a nobody, so why are you so high maintenance? Kaiser is rich, handsome, successful, and a football genius. What more could you possibly want in a boyfriend?”

“Wow,” you say, astonishment at something indeterminate apparent on your face.

Ness waits for you to elaborate, but you don’t, instead opting to scrutinize him in silence. “What? Don’t just say wow and then leave it at that. How can someone be so difficult?”

Your expression shifts into something meaner, then, a mocking raise of your eyebrows, a lop-sided but meaningless smile. “It’s just kind of amazing. You can’t help but ride Kaiser’s dick even while trying to guide it inside of me.”

“Wh-huh… What?!” Ness screeches, scandalized. “How… How crude? You're a vulgar moron! Totally indecent! That’s what you are!”

“I mean, can you blame me for being jealous of that kind of attention? You can do crazy tricks on it.”

“Why are you saying those kinds of things to me?! S-Something’s not right with you.”

You reach out and squish Ness’s cheeks together, leaving his lips to pucker, and you can feel his skin burning. “You’re an amusing guy, Ness. I haven’t decided if I find you pathetic or endearing yet, but I like it.” Then you let go of him as casually as you grabbed him, intending to continue on your merry way.

There are footsteps hurrying after you. “Admit your love to Kaiser already.”

Love? A frightening laugh rattles you. Your body jerks upright and you feel like an evil spirit was just exorcised out of you with how unexpected your reaction was, even to you.

“I know you can’t resist his charms. No one can.”

Kaiser’s… charms? You knew it, he’s trying to kill you.

“And- and- and!!! You’re going to play on our side against Ubers, and you’re going to like it.”

You’re borderline in hysterics now, stomach hurting.

“Stop walking away from me! Are you even listening? You should really listen when people talk to you!”

___

Im still loopy so presented without comment. Feel free to tell me wat you thikn the worst line from this abomination is

[nanamineedstherapy]

Get ready I'm about to emotionally wreck you. (This is a Gojo × Nanami paragraph cause I was spiralling)

Nanami's last words to Yuuji right before being blown off was "You've got it from here."

We popularly know Yuuji resembles Gojo and is meant to be somewhat of a parallel to him, canonically. We also know Nanami once shat on Gojo right after Haibara's death for being the strongest — it was Nanami's way of trying to convey "No matter how hard we work, people will only cry for the strongest."

What if Nanami's last words to Yuuji wasn't just for Yuuji? What if Nanami used Yuuji's likeliness to Gojo as a vessel to say his final apologies to Gojo— kind of like a "I'm sorry, Satoru, you've got it from here." cause at the end of the day, Satoru is the strongest and the only person Nanami genuinely trusted to protect the kids? That little smile? The final forgiveness? Hello, they were literally Yuuji's parents.

And they say gonana isn't sad like hell no, I can make it ten times sadder ydek, they're so divorced couples/co-parents coded to me.

Alexa play "Somewhere only we know."

Anon you didn’t emotionally wreck me, you emotionally exorcised me. Like I levitated. My spine curled into a quotation mark.

You’re telling me Nanami looked at Yuuji—the Gojo-coded bastard child of jujutsu society—and basically used him as a proxy divorce lawyer to send his final love note to the man who ruined his life??? THE SAME MAN he dragged in broad daylight for being the strongest, only to turn around and whisper "it was always you, Satoru" with a SMILE before detonating???

No literally they were divorced co-parents in the most toxic-yet-functional PTA dynamic possible. Nanami was scheduling the student field trips. Gojo was trying to sneak Yuuji into strip clubs “for experience.” Yuuji had to make their couple therapy appointments.

And YET... in his final moment, Nanami gave Gojo the one thing he couldn’t give himself: forgiveness. Because he knew Satoru would blame himself forever.

You know what? I’m calling it. Nanago was JJK’s first ship and Gege tried to memory-wipe us. It’s giving Mandela Effect. It’s giving “they weren’t roommates, they were ex-husbands with matching trauma.”

Anyway, welcome to the brainrot, Anon. Join the ✨Nanago Divorce and Delusion Society™✨ if you like your sorrow bisexual and canon-deranged. We make memes and cry recreationally.

Now I will do you one better. Nanami died trying to get to Gojo in Shibuya.

[balrogballs]

Just thanking you for drawing Elrond as Lúthien-lookalike and not receding hairline Elrond because I’m so tired of people drawing him like the movies

congratulations on sending me this annoying ass message and thus becoming the reason why I will only ever draw Elrond with a receding hairline and steep widow’s peak from this day forwards 👍🏽

i genuinely do not understand why people have spent almost 25 years being so fucking deranged over this specific thing like what is going on in your life that some random actor’s hair loss trajectory is something you devote any brain space to! there was literally a fucking viral reddit post about elrond hairline discourse this year! why do people care so much! the films are nearly 25 years old!

also i’m sorry but literally every character in the films wore a wig, they would have sorted out his hairline in 2 seconds if they had wanted to (and they clearly lowered it for the Hobbit films when he’s meant to be younger + HW has worn hairpieces in most of his roles so is clearly fine with augmentation) so it was evidently a deliberate choice to keep it like that — and imo it’s a really good one! It’s interesting! He’s still hot! The catholic schoolgirl braids are fun! It’s eldritch! Elrond is old as fuck! He’s a card carrying old coot! Cirdan canonically has a Gandalf beard! Elrond is meant to be half human so ageing isn’t unrealistic anyway! If you had that kind of life you’d lose your damn hair too!

(tldr the guy is fit regardless of hair, i hate that i spent 10 minutes typing this response out re: the most pointless topic known to mankind and fyi the hairline doesn’t even negate the luthien thing, luthien was a woman so obviously she wasn’t going to suffer from male pattern baldness??? 😭)