do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up
i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.
she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.
never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-
i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:
okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.
the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page
she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later
so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions
"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"
"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"
Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.
I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.
On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.
Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.
And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.
Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.
Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it
and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks
And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.
(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)
The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.
And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)
I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.
and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured
In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.
(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)
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Why are you so up in arms about some people not being comfortable with a (rather edgy and potentially offensive) joke? The posts I've seen are just talking about how the casual homophobia whenever Tubbo is around makes them not want to watch any streams that Tubbo is showing up on.
I understand that you don't find these jokes offensive or harmful, at least in comparison to some of the other rp that has been done on the server (and I am genuinely very glad for it!! I hope they never become so), but different people have had different experiences, and to some people homophobia will be genuinely more upsetting than themes of self harm, to name an example you used.
It feels very shitty to see you and some other tubblings vehemently defend these jokes, as it can be extremely jarring to go from enjoying happy gay roleplay to homophobic jokes (yes, even from an openly gay man, the mouthpiece doesn't make the content less jarring).
So I guess I'm still wondering, why? I get being defensive of your streamer, but I guess I'm struggling to reconcile the "queer-smp" with people invalidating others' experiences with, and reactions to, homophobia
Okay well the main thing is that it’s really not that deep. Don’t like the jokes don’t watch, log off, touch grass ect.
People can be upset about whatever they want, but to say that the admin team, his fellow streamers and his community need to “talk to him” about it is insanity. The jokes themselves aren’t even something that isn’t already said in queer spaces irl (again go outside) and the fact that people are so up in arms about their picture perfect straight men playing make believe they’re in a gay relationship and having one actually gay man say “I hate happy couples” is insane.
Really, it’s shows how little the space cares for real queer people and relationships that don’t adhere to their internet filled fantasies of gay people.
At the end of the day, it’s a gay man joking about his own experiences and to get upset about it is fine. But don’t write emails telling him he’s inciting hate crimes, don’t tell the admin team to “talk to him” (ableism and infantilism much), and don’t try to get him cancelled for making jokes that YOU yourself don’t like.
If you don’t like a gay man making mildly homophobic jokes (something he has experienced!!!) but are okay with two straight men playing a gay couple and getting paid for it only to log off and not deal with any irl consequences then you’ve lost the plot I’m sorry.
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thinkin thots about varus the eater,,,, when i read htn and was introduced to the whole 'RB induced insanity' and how the lyctors perceived the Beasts, i assumed it was your classic 'cosmic horror too large for the human mind to convey appears in form that teeters on the edge of reality' , but now with ntn telling us everyone sees an RB the same way, I'm being led to believe its more 'cosmic desire so large it almost ruptures the brain but is still ultimately recognisable' 1/2
(varun anon) what is that desire? it presumably changes from beast to beast, and because we don't know anything about the others apart from some descriptions (though i am curious about what a beast that is received as 'beautiful' by human standards[the one who was trying to drown mercy and only softly repeated 'die'] could possibly want, considering how we have alecto the haunted barbie doll and how much she hates being 'pretty') 2/3 now lmao
(varun anon for the last time i promise/lh) assuming that varun is presenting as their body pre-Oh-Fuckening, it means their cosmic desire is home!!!!!! it makes so much sense why they love none so much and are so ready to come to her aid
Yo, I had assumed the same thing, that the nature of a Resurrection Beast depended on the observer, not the Beast itself. But you're right, Varun proves otherwise! Why do all the Resurrection Beasts appear as different kinds of cosmic horror? Why a giant head? Why something beautiful that tried to gently drown them? Why a giant glowing blue orb?
If Varun is the ghost of Uranus, then that really is just... what it looked like in life.
Of course, there is the difference in location to consider. This is Varun periscoping, peeking out into the physical world, while the other Resurrection Beasts that Augustine and Mercy describe were in the River. We don't know what a fully realised Varun might look like.
So what does Varun want? Does it want to go home, is that why it looks like itself? If home is a place, the solar system, there would be nothing stopping it from going there. Like any revenant, it must have a thanergetic link it could follow back to its corpse. If home isn't a place but a time when it was alive, a part of its existence now ended, then home is beyond even it now.
Most revenants have links to their murderers, too, if it's looking for John: which it seems like it was, prior to the events of Harrow the Ninth. It isn't anymore.
There's only one reason for Varun to be hanging over New Rho, and that's Nona. It's looking for Alecto, the Earth, the last living representative of its kind. I had thought it was looking for her to enact vengeance on its behalf, and it does want that. It asked for it in as many words, the first time it possessed Judith. But...
“They concoct their own vengeance,” said the Captain. “Their justice is not my justice. Their water is not my water. I came to help. I am made a mockery. The danger is upon you, and you do not even know … they are coming out of their tower, salt thing. There is a hole at the bottom of their tower. I will pull their teeth. I will make it blank for you.”
There is clearly a wrong way to go about it, in Varun's opinion. Who or what the "they" is in this statement is not entirely clear, if it's even referring to the same thing every time. The 'they' coming out of their tower would seem to be the devils possessing people, the things that took Colum back in Canaan House. Is their justice not Varun's justice? If it doesn't want what the devils want, then what is its vision of justice, what vengeance does it want Alecto to enact?
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