#like nothing i do matters

[ryssbelle]

Thought of this while at work, sorry it's a bit hard to read I sketched it out really fast before my last shift lmao wanted to get it done so I could work on other stuff hehe

If it's any consultation Floyd is mostly talking about himself

#my art #trolls #dreamworks trolls #brozone #trolls 3 #trolls floyd #trolls john dory #trolls branch #trolls poppy #the way i imagine their 20 years in troll village is that one meme where its the two different nothing in life matters pics #but one is super sad and the other is happy looking and radical #thats floyd and jd #but they switch places depending on the day #branch is a secret third option #also idk what id do with the 3rd movies plot #this scene in my head is 3rd movie era but i like havent decided what theyre doing yet #theres a few possibilities on whos in the bottle or if theres a bottle at all #this would take place in a timeline where clay or bruce is in the bottle #but like heres the thing any of the brothers could be bottled and itd make for a good story #i drift more towards clay only for the irony of finding out your brothers alive but its a race against time cuz hes literally dying #so it adds to the urgency but then its not much adventure cuz they just gotta get bruce and go #cuz we have 3/5 brozone here already #same goes for if its bruce #so like for story purposes that means it would be most likely JD or Floyd which is just most aus and canon #cuz after world tour Floyd would travel with JD on their own tour Floyd going solo with JD as his manager #and in this scenario they came back to tell Branch about finding whoever is in the bottle #but the story of these guys could also work without any bottle so idk we'll just have to see what i decide to do later #also im slowly coming up with a name for this #very slowly but it'll happen #i actually have a google doc that has a name so i may just use that

[snarkspawn]

I see you

#genshin impact #genshin fanart #scaramouche #genshin scaramouche #stuff and things #userpharawee #I've been struggling with my art a lot again these past few weeks #it's so frustrating ughhh so manny scrapped wips and stuff that went straight to the bin. nothing to share at all #I hate it #so I needed to do something a little different I think #and I've been playing genshin a lot lately so this was only a matter of time lol #not sure if I like it but at least it's ... something ig

[knifearo]

i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a binary i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a sliding scale of "less" to "more" i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the only two options i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as significantly different things i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as all encompassing i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the two halves of a shallow concept of love that doesn't actually encompass anything at all i think we need to overhaul every popular conception about "types" of love so we can talk about things that are real and true for once

#in conclusion. alloromantics stfu up about love challenge #hate using the term platonic so much actually. cause even if it has a definition that is what it Should mean #you know that people don't actually think about it that way. #you say 'platonic' and you might Mean an all-encompassing love. but how it's interpreted is shorthand for 'just friends' #so like. the word platonic isn't Really for me is it :| #platonic gets presented like a consolation prize for aro people no matter where you turn #but fundamentally rn it comes from a concept of platonic and romantic as the two kinds of love #where platonic is for family and friends and nothing More. #and romantic is for the relationships that overhaul all else #so 'aros can still feel platonic love!' ok. what if it's not platonic as you know it though. #'oh then it's romantic!' k but it's not romantic either. will your framework explode if i say that #'aros can still feel platonic love!' why do you say that like it's a second-best option and expect me to identify with it... #again. platonic might Actually mean smth i experience. but it won't be Heard that way. do you get what i'm saying #i don't experience 'platonic blurring into romantic' cause i will never feel romantic love actually. those lines are still blurring though #ummmmm in conclusion. killing and biting #aromantic #aromanticism #aroace #arospec #talking

[edorazzi]

Page 4 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which Adrien is adorably optimistic and Felix is about to get a huge shock at public school - but from what? 👀

Index | Prev | Next (coming soon!)

Weekly updates each Sunday! You can also read ahead early on Patreon, and/or buy me a Ko-fi if you'd like to support my work! 💖

#miraculous ladybug #mentor au #adrien agreste #felix sphinx #A Matter of Trust #adrien breaks out of his house to attend school; felix goes because he has NOTHING else to do #his lil burst of confidence about to go down in flames ; w ; #place your guesses here! #josie's art #also the school is purposely missing the glass upper level which houses the cafeteria in canon #i like to think that was a later extension to the building; small differences my beloved

[sophsicle]

time is so fucking scary. because it does not care if you are happy. you will think I wish to stay like this, right here in this moment. i have found my place. but then time comes like a wave and pushes you forward. you cannot stay. and neither can the people you love. forward forward forward. time has ripped the claws from my hands, and the teeth from my mouth, as I have tried to cling to yesterday. but you must move forward forward forward. Forward forward forward. Forward forward forward. Forward forward forw—

#i recently went back to the place in which i was happiest in my life #and it has changed and doesn't look the same #and doesn't belong to me anymore #and quite honestly nothing aches quite like knowing #that no matter what i do i can never go back #that even if i stayed it would have all gone away anyway #that i had to move forward #and i had to let go of the things that made me happy #because time wouldn't stop #soph rambles

[ohitslen]

Intrusive thoughts

#nothing like thinking about how it’d be to murder your homie. we all do that aaaall the time right #a passion of mine is writing dialogue in a way that you could interchange who says it and it’d still make sense when it comes to Vashwood #they both get insane intrusive thoughts and that’s a matter of fact #they are turbo traumatized so it’s even worse at times. this is what I would say one of the tamest instances if that means anything #Vash would feel so guilty abt them too. bc they don’t feel like his thoughts. it’s almost as if it was someone else’s #they have pointed their guns at each other but never shoot. the thoughts have lost another day <3 #Vashwood is: having thoughts and rarely do anything abt them (positive and negative) #everybody who has intrusive thoughts say hell yeah. HELL YEAH!!! #gentle reminder that intrusive thoughts are just that and don’t define you as a person. they are. I’m fact. intrusive #intrusive thoughts #cw intrusive thoughts #tw intrusive thoughts #for those who may need to filter those out #trigun #vash the stampede #nicholas d wolfwood #trigun stampede #vashwood #trigun fanart #vash #wolfwood #nicholas trigun #lenssi draws #lenssi writes #because I wrote the lines first and THEN I did the drawings #still fixated on Vash’s eyes btw if you didn’t notice

[ca-3]

• • • ♡ × ❕️❕️❕️

I saw this tweet and of course had to make it about them

#persona 5 #pegoryu #ryuji sakamoto #ren amamiya #akira kurusu #persona 5 protagonist #nothing like the silent protag x their bestie #i want do this for sunny and kel too now... #ca3 art #i was just going go leave it at that first panel but i turned into a mini comic 😗 #it doesnt matter what they do together cause they always feel free together ❤️💛 #persona 5 royal #also i have small hc that when they start dating Ryuji has a habit of sometimes unknowingly holds Ren's hand but renren thinks its endearing

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: violence mention / death mention / ]

Will never stop thinking about how Leo, all alone in an endless void and being beaten again and again and again by the only other living thing around, still finds comfort in that space. The situation he was in was completely hopeless, and in any other circumstances he would not have escaped, at least not fast enough to save him from permanent (or even fatal) damage, be it physical or mental.

And yet, despite the bleakness of his situation, despite the agony and helplessness, all he needs is one glance at a crumbled photograph, one glance to remember his family, and that’s enough of a reason for him to smile.

Maybe that’s why his powers center around manipulating space - because no matter how much space is between them, no matter how dire his own situation may be, just the thought of his family, alive and okay, is enough to give Leo hope.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt leo #rise leo #the prison dimension is horrifying on its own #add in a monstrous being that towers over you and has vowed to ensure your suffering? #god I can’t imagine how scary that is #Mikey opening the portal was a miracle because if he hadn’t managed it there #it’s really up in the air what could have become of Leo #personally I subscribe by the theory that you straight up can’t die in the prison dimension #so it’s a prison in all ways #but the thought of a Leo who manages anyway who adapts and continues to have hope despite it all… #Leo saying he’s nothing without his family is a double edged sword really #because the thought of his family alone is all he needs to live. to hope. #to smile #nothing without them…but they’re EVERYTHING to him #and maybe he doesn’t realize it but…the feeling is mutual #one thing too is that hope that comforts Leo so much is not just that #should he think his family needs help - that hope can turn into determination #I’m unwell about this family #actually on my point of their powers - I truly do think the abilities tie in not only to their personalities #but to their relationship to family and love in general #kinda like love languages in a way #Mikey with his chains and time abilities values being around his family the most - he wants them to experience living in the moment togethe #Donnie is someone who is 100% a gift giver to show his love - his constructs are exactly that aren’t they? gifts of his mind #Raph is someone who willingly bears the weight of the shield - he protects his family like the best big brother possible #and Leo - he goes off on his own a lot but his mind is constantly on his family anyway #like a sailor at sea no matter how far he travels the compass always point in one direction - and for him that compass points home #even if he can’t make it back - it’s still there #and that’s enough

[puppyeared]

Why are ppl scared to call it what it is and say we’re still going thru covid on top of seasonal illness. Like. That’s pretty important right. I was watching the news and they were like oh yeah we have an unprecedented number of flu cases “as well as other sicknesses” without actually saying Covid. No announcement abt vaccinations or masking or anything. Also if I hear someone joking abt “war flashbacks” for mentioning covid I fucking hate u

#source: most of my family members are nurses and it was so bad for one of them they had to be put on a ventilator. in the hospital they #worked at. looking back I think I had a reason to feel a little offput by the shows of support early pandemic #with people tying blue ribbons around trees and lighting signs blue to support healthcare workers #I get that it was supposed to be moral support when we couldn’t do anything but follow health advisories #and it did matter to make them feel uplifted and do something than nothing. im not gonna deny that #but. you can still help now. u know that right. you still have a responsibility here #u can still mask up. u can still get vaxxed and call in sick to avoid infecting others #don’t leave it on healthcare workers to pick up the pieces just because they were doing it before. do u think they had a choice? #nobody likes picking up the slack for someone else and now that we have more tools to do smth couldn’t we just. do it???? #im not a virologist but i also feel like continuing to let it get worse by letting more mutations develop #could continue to set us back since this virus is pretty good at fucking us up long term and finding new ways to do that #while there are ppl still researching covid which is STILL A RELATIVELY NEW VIRUS. and studying possible treatment and cures #yapping #vent

[jicklet]

1.15 || 4.03

Was it after you drank Karen's fake poison for me? Earlier.

#Nancy Drew #Ndcw #nancydrewedit #naceedit #Nace #Nancy x Ace #ace [redacted] #Nancy drew spoilers #V watches Nancy Drew #V posts things #I was wondering why they had Nancy bring up the poison incident bc it feels like that wasn't a realization moment for Ace but for Nancy #(that boy was realizing nothing he was already all in) #But I was rewatching 115 and it hit me that it foreshadows Ace in 403 perfectly #He trusts Nancy to the moon and back #When it was him on the line he downed that vial like a shot no hesitation #And he was ready to risk the curse when it was just his life #But no matter how much he trusts Nancy he just can't see her in danger #Hah remember back even earlier in S1 when she called out the poisoner to come after her and he just had to stand there and watch her do it #No wonder he got so relentless about making sure she had backup for the rest of that escapade #And then elects himself to watch out for her always because well she's not going to do it #(Hm that last thought is giving me Peter and Olivia vibes. I'll think on that)

[pixlokita]

I feel like ? I gotta remind people it’s ok to unfollow a blog when it upsets you in any way >> like if I ever do that sure, you can let me know if it was anything I did personally I’d appreciate it but if you just don’t enjoy something it’s ok to unfollow ;w; can’t stress enough how important it is to put your mental health first 👌

#pix habla #fnaf #✨💖 even if you don’t like frogs and I post about frogs does that make sense #i see some yall not liking some of the stuff I draw and just kinda wonder ? why you still follow lol #i won’t take it personally #even if it’s a mutual heck I’ve even told my friends to unfollow if they ever need a break from my blog =w=👌 #because It’s nothing personal >> #i used to ok so funny story xD I used to follow a friend in middle school on social media #and we were good friends but had nothing in common in what we posted about =w= #like she loved Beatles fanfics (don’t ask do not ask idk I didn’t read past the titles) #and i loved sonic :v #and like #thats aigh ? you don’t gotta ? follow a blog that doesn’t bring joy no matter if you’re close or not #i would honestly hate it if I’m making anyone upset or unhappy #so yeyeyeye I’ve said this before in other fandoms but like >>)✨✨💖 put 👏 your mental health 👏👏👏 FIRST ALWAYS👏 #Stay safe y’all ✨👌 have fun be free #we’re all just… sitting here… online 😔 ain’t nothing to it

[saphushia]

ok. ok. i KNOW i said the previous comic would be the last for a while. but. BUT. i thought a little too long about the sentimentality of scars, and the choice, the ability to prioritize feelings over function 🥺

once again, @shepscapades 's DBHC au, and in large part inspired by this specific drawing/info. while it's really no effort at all for etho to carry all that stuff in one arm, it's about. it's about him not having to, because they're equals, because they're friends, because his friend wants to help, even if he doesn't necessarily need it.

timelapse below the cut (flashing colors warning)

forgot to start the recording until i'd already sketched the first 2 panels but you get what you get lmao

#etho gets tons of chances to show off being strong carrying bdubs' stuff #but sometimes bdubs wants to help n do the same for him <3 #also. hc bdubs is the ugliest crier ever #he doesn't do tearing up it is full on sniffly sobbing or nothing #doesn't matter if he's not even that upset. that's just what he looks like #i have an idea for a follow up i might make at some point but i really do need to get other stuff done #dbhc au #hermitcraft #hermitcrap #art #ethubs #hermitshipping #fanart #ethoslab #bdoubleo100 #comic #timelapse

[vaguely-concerned]

Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.

G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.

An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........

#the unwanted guest #the unwanted guest spoilers #the locked tomb #ianthe tridentarius #augustine the first #pyrrha dve #palamedes sextus #this series is going to make me lose my mind completely one day (affectionate) #the locked tomb meta #the fact that ianthe seems to have had some genuine admiration for augustine makes my head spin. of course though. #of course she sees the person who looks the most like he's successfully made himself impervious to the world #utterly untouchable and impossible to hurt because he isn't even really there #and she believes it! even after seeing the john mercy augustine mess at the end! because it's such a seductive idea #when you've stuck yourself in an inevitable ocean of pain to think you could make yourself numb enough that it doesn't matter #it's the emotional equivalent of 'oh there's water all around? well I just won't breathe in then. easy lmao get on my level' #she holds on to that thing from him even when it's been proved to be both impossible and ultimately untrue even in him #because uh. oh I'm about to be kind of sad for ianthe what the fuck is going on. he might actually have been the closest thing #to parental and especially paternal affection she's ever known. certainly known enough to try to model herself after #IMAGINE how fucked up the nine houses must be when augustine the first registers for anyone as a model of psychological survival #ianthe do you really want to be yourself completely so much that you're willing to be nothing. I mean yeah probably but. oh my god #gaining nothing at the cost of everything

[emily-e-draws]

catventurers meowlphabet (first half) 😽✨

#catventurers #original #cat art #tabaxi #racing against the clock to see if i can finish the last few before i've posted the ones i've got done LOL #ive painted up to S so if I post one every few days.. and paint one every few days.. i should have some leeway hopefully #it does not even matter i just am overly conscious of how my instagram profile looks #I like doing one of these every other post. it looks nice #and hopefully that way people aren't getting tired of them........ #well w/e people can think what they like cause i love these sm #nothing better than a silly little guy!!! #anyways if you're reading all this thank you #shocked if anyone made it this far i'm just saying nonsense to myself

[thefirstknife]

New article with more details (from Jason Schreier who first broke the story). If you can't see it, I'll copy the whole text under read more.

About 100 employees were laid off in total (8%) and one of the main reasons listed is "underperformance," "sharp drop in popularity" and "poor reception of Lightfall."

So you know when for the last year and a half content creators have been shitting and pissing on the game as a full-time job and the amount of negativity and ragebait content became the only thing to make content about for them? Well they certainly won't take the blame, but I will let it be known. These people either don't understand the influence they have or they do and they're doing it on purpose, and I don't know which of these two options is worse, but I am 100% confident that their campaign of rage and hate contributed to this.

You don't base your entire community around constantly hating everything about the only game you play (despite clearly not enjoying it anymore) and somehow avoid galvanising thousands and thousands of people into perceiving the game negatively. Imagine being employees who have barely worked there for 2 years and the only community reception they've seen is 24/7 hate train for their work and then they get fired because of "poor reception" and "drop in popularity." How can they not take that personally? I am absolutely devastated for these people who delievered a banger product and who were met with an unrelenting barrage of toxic gamer children which ended up having more sway over their boss than them.

Which brings me to the next bit and that's FUCK THE CEO. He is now my mortal enemy #1. I am projecting psychic blasts directly into his brain. What an absolute spineless coward who is more willing to bow down to fucking gamers than to protect his own employees. This is absolutely rage inducing because this has happened before. From the article from 2021 about the toxic culture at Bungie:

Reading this shit from the new article absolutely fucking sent me into blind rage because I immediately remembered this. Another instance of employees suffering because of comments on reddit. And because of toxic players. And proof that leadership is not protecting employees and is instead siding with players.

Match made in heaven. Asshole gamer content creators and asshole CEOs, all of whom sit at home on piles of money made from someone else's labour. I hope they all explode. None of the people that worked on this game deserve this.

Another article with an infuriating comment from the CEO:

In an internal town hall meeting addressing a Monday round of layoffs that impacted multiple departments, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons allegedly told remaining employees that the company had kept “the right people” to continue work on Destiny 2.

"Kept the right people." Really. Veteran composers weren't the right people? Die!

Bloomberg article in full:

Bungie’s decision to cut an estimated 100 jobs from its staff of about 1,200 followed dire management warnings earlier this month of a sharp drop in the popularity of its flagship video game Destiny 2. Just two weeks ago, executives at the Sony-owned game developer told employees that revenue was running 45% below projections for the year, according to people who attended the meeting. Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons pinned the big miss on weak player retention for Destiny 2, which has faced a poor reception since the release of its latest expansion, Lightfall. The next expansion, The Final Shape, was getting good — not great feedback — and management told those present that they planned to push back the release to June 2024 from February, according the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The additional time would give developers a chance to improve the product. In the meantime, Parsons told staff Bungie would be cutting costs, such as for travel, as well as implementing salary and hiring freezes, the people said. Everyone would have to work together to weather the storm, he said, leaving employees feeling determined to do whatever was needed to get revenue back up. But on Monday morning the news got worse: Dozens of staffers woke up to mysterious 15-minute meetings that had been placed on their calendars, which they soon learned were part of a mass layoff. Bungie laid off around 8% of its employees, according to documentation reviewed by Bloomberg. Bungie didn’t respond to requests for comment. Employees who were let go will receive at least three months of severance and three months of Bungie-paid COBRA health insurance, although other benefits, such as expense reimbursements, ended Monday, sending some staff racing to submit their receipts. Laid-off staffers will also receive prorated bonuses, although those who were on a vesting schedule following Sony Group Corp.’s acquisition of Bungie in January 2022 will lose any shares that weren’t vested as of next month. The layoffs are part of a larger money-saving initiative at Sony’s PlayStation unit, which has also cut employees at studios such as Naughty Dog, Media Molecule and its San Mateo office. TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in a report Monday that “events over the last few days lead us to believe that PlayStation is undergoing a restructuring.” PlayStation president Jim Ryan announced last month that he plans to resign. Many of the layoffs at Bungie affected the company’s support departments, such as community management and publishing. Remaining Bungie staff were informed that some of those areas will be outsourced moving forward.

#destiny 2 #bungie #long post #and like i don't care what's anyone's opinion on lightfall. it doesn't matter #the expansion is fine. there's some bad shit in there as there is in every expansion #literally nothing on this earth was so bad to deserve the amount of vitriol that lightfall got #it was purely motivated by hate and rage from people who have clearly lost their interest in the game a long time ago #no one else normal enough would respond even to a weaker expansion this way. and lightfall wasn't even weaker #literally nothing ever released in destiny deserves to have comments bad enough to end up affecting employees #there's been some bad expansions/dlcs/seasons. whatever. none of them were like... gollum level. not even close #people genuinely treated lightfall like it personally killed their dog. it was insane. the reaction to it was insane. #it stemmed from people who should have stopped playing a long time ago and stopped being content creators for one game #i can't even properly explain just how long and tireless the ragebait content campaign for destiny has been #opening youtube and seeing 10 videos in a row of just complaining and bitching #opening twitter and seeing thousands upon thousands of posts and comments dedicated solely to hating the game #imagine being an employee trying to maintain some communication with the community #hippy was relentlessly bullied by people I've seen suddenly lamenting that she was fired. you caused this #they will never accept even a miniscule portion of the blame for this ofc. they will just keep claiming they don't have that influence #but they do. it's been proven years ago. in the same way #community comments DO reach devs and community comments DO influence what happens to them and the game #'the event is bad' 'meta is bad' 'pvp is bad' 'raid is bad' 'story is bad' stop playing. no longer asking. #it's a video game. if you hate it stop playing. you don't have to justify it to hundreds of thousands of people and take them with you #especially when it leads to employees taking the fall #so to all content creators who are appalled and baffled after spending 2 years hating the game: you did this. #and to the ceo even more: explode into dust and be forgotten

[possamble]

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.)

#asks #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #marcille donato #manga panel analysis #this is probably riddled with typos sorry #readmore cut bc it got long lmao #i ended up babbling about it bc it's such an important character detail to me #bc like... wow. she's so normal about it. she's literally just chilling. #the only thing that really bothers her is the material reality of it and how people treat her #the stereotypes the stigma etc. etc. #otherwise it just.. #literally doesn't factor into her criteria for self-worth at all #the basic truth is that marcille likes herself on a fundamental level #she's not plagued by a deep and festering self-loathing the way a lot of characters in her archetype are #she likes herself and is proud of her successes and accomplishments #its just that shes terrified of failure and can have *episodes* of self-loathing when she fucks up #but who doesn't yknow #i know its a very slight nuance that makes very little difference in how her 'overachiever' problems manifest but its there #the sword of abandonment issues that hangs over her head has nothing to do with her self-worth or self-esteem or meeting her own standards #it has to do with the fear of not living up to *other* people's expectations and not being useful enough to be worth keeping around #she's good enough for herself but she's always so so so scared that she's not good enough for other people #i wont say much about what ryoko kui is saying using this as an allegory for real world racial biases but #dungeon meshi's treatment of marcille's relationship with her being half-elf is so incredibly important to me because it gets it so right. #a trauma about inferiority or being a half-being isn't inherent to the experience of being 'of two worlds' at all #that's something that's unfairly drilled into people by their environment #the *inherent* anguish is the loneliness. the constant longing. the fact that you are always homesick no matter where you are #always just a little bit of an outsider and never fully at home #and dungeon meshi gets that. #edit: cleaned it up a little