MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! i have another marichat holiday themed piece for y'all :D (imagine this is stuffed in ur stocking or smth (along with some tiny candy canes))
While still fixated on TMNT at large, I am especially not able to stop thinking about Bad End Ninja Turtles, an au comic by @butterfilledpockets. 2003's "Same as it Never Was" Raph may not have ever experienced the Ninja Tribunal arc, AND I don't think Rise movie Leo still has his powers, so maybe this was just as much of a surprise for the both of them as it was for Ronin. at least we know for sursies Don-bot has seen magic shit before.
Shoutout to Magic for taking "Watson equivalent who was a former assassin of some kind" and ascending it to "Watson equivalent who is still an active assassin, not even on the side, like being a detective's assistant is their side job"
Proft: "He's covered his tracks well. He's definitely our culprit, but with all the physical evidence destroyed we'll never be able to prove it to the courts."
Etrata: "...So like, does that mean I'm fine to... you know..."
Proft: *sighs* "...Just please tell me you're being paid by someone else to do it."
Etrata: "Oh they gave me the contract like halfway through the investigation. I was just waiting to see if we could get him in custody first."
One thing I wanna do more is include Battinson's complete lack of filter.
That scene at the funeral where Falcone tried to push that 'your father saved me for a reason' fantasy, which Bruce ended very quickly with his '' He took the Hippocratic oath" line
It can sure read as snarky, and in some parts, it was, -- Falcone's antourage surely saw it as that, -- but Bruce was completely serious.
It wasn't a diplomatic move on his part, but that's why it works. 'No filter' doesn't generally entail being rude and bold, it's your thoughts being faster than your mouth without considering how it'd sound out loud
Not to mention, Bruce wouldn't process sarcasm the same as everyone else. He's good at dishing it, for sure, but we've seen he's completely oblivious to obvious social ques,
If somebody were to be like, " haha maybe YOU'RE batman" him, the go to reaction would be " haha good one"
Bruce? Would start shaking on the spot. It's raining nerves out here. " No I'm not." With a blank face, " I'm not. I'm scared of bats. I hate bats. I wish bats never existed. I wish YOU never existed. Im sorry. Goodbye." Before taking off in a hurry.
Do you have any headcanons or thoughts about Falin having a crush on Marcille pre-canon? Especially during her later years at the school/the years she was with Laios.
Just full on "awkward and slightly gnc teenage lesbian has a massive crush on the touchy-feely girly girl straight best friend" tropes everywhere. Even better bc it's the "best friend is also the popular girl while lesbian is the slightly ostracized quiet one" dynamic in school. Falin gets so so so good at not having a heart attack every time Marcille gets in her personal space. But she's so resigned to never saying anything bc why would a girl as blinding as Marcille ever like her back. She also doesn't make an effort to get over it either, she's just content to be trapped in that stable dynamic of silently being in love with Marcille while getting to enjoy CLEARLY being Marcille's favourite person. She gets so used to it that it's almost just background noise most of the time-- it would have to be, unless she wanted to be freaking out 24/7 bc Marcille is so goddamn affectionate.
Her feelings also definitely change throughout the time that they're in school together-- at first it was this "whooaaah pretty older girl" puppy crush that you can clearly see developing in the flashbacks we get (I think she doesn't even like... realize her fixation on Marcille is romantic at all until years after it starts, when she's 12-14 ish and all the other girls around her are talking about crushes). But then they get closer, over the years Marcille starts getting really attached and letting down her guard, and Falin gets to see the ridiculous side of her. She gets to calm her down from her tantrums when experiments don't work out, or help her clean up when something explodes in her face. I feel like the progression of her feelings from "schoolgirl infatuation" to "unrequited love" probably almost exactly corresponds to how slowly Marcille goes from trying to keep Falin at a polite but friendly distance (like she does with everyone else) to her facade completely eroding as she becomes her cheerful and ridiculous self again for the first time since her father died.
That's probably the saddest part: Falin knows that she's clearly Marcille's favourite person on the surface level, but she doesn't quite fully grasp the enormity of what that means to Marcille. She doesn't get that she's the person who made the world colorful again for Marcille, that she is the first person outside of Marcille's family to really and truly make her laugh. She just thinks she's the beloved but dinky little short-lived sidekick, one of many that Marcille has had and will have.
Part of it is that, despite Marcille becoming such a clingy and affectionate best friend, I think her initial demeanour already did its damage. You see Falin being super adventurous and weird at first, bringing Marcille berries and other stuff, only to be rebuffed by Marcille exasperatedly saying she's working or looking kind of put off by it. And by the time you see her a little older, shes already quieter and better at masking -- and I'm not saying that that's entirely Marcille's fault (being the weird girl at an all girls academy for almost the entirety of her teenhood must have been brutal, my god) but she definitely learned that she's a potential nuisance to Marcille if she doesn't tone herself down. She learned that Marcille most likely sees her as a weird little kid following her around bc she has no other friends. And for the most part, she was never given any reason to unlearn any of that.
And that all very very smoothly transitions into Marcille being her "first love that was never meant to be anyway" when she leaves the academy. Chapter closed in her mind: she loved and pined from a distance and that was that. Every now and then she'll see another woman with Marcille's build or her shade of hair and be like ":( I miss her..." But then just kinda move on with her day. Same with when she's going through her own spellbook and finds a note that Marcille left her/correction that she made-- she'll smile fondly and reminisce about how much Marcille doted on her, and then move on.
Sometimes she thinks about contacting Marcille but convinces herself that it's too late (she spent too many months focusing on getting Laios healthy again and didn't mean to go no contact, but ah well). It's only when she has a practical reason to be reaching out that would also benefit Marcille ("Marcille is studying dungeons and we need a trustworthy mage to go with us to the dungeons") that she feels like she's allowed/that it wouldn't just be 100% a nuisance.
I almost think she didn't expect Marcille to reply at all, only to get a telegraph (or some in-universe equivalent of express mail, maybe magical pigeon carrier) that's like. EN ROUTE TO ISLAND. LETTER TO FOLLOW. and she freaks out like AAAA LAIOS SHE SAID YES WE HAVE TO CLEAN UP NOW.
I do think getting a response accidentally sparks a little hope in her, judging by the way she acts in the chp 57 flashback-- she's pouty that Marcille sees her as a kid, gets really worked up about being presentable, and then tries to play it cool when she actually meets Marcille (as if she didn't freak out and force Laios to shave while rambling a mile a minute about Marcille). She's an adult now, really and truly, and she's seen and survived things that her 18 yr old self would have never even imagined-- then all of a sudden, the person she was in love with since she was ten years old appears, and she's so desperate to be seen as mature and competent. She's trying soooo hard to impress Marcille with her newfound combat and dungeoneering experience...
Only to fall right back into their old dynamic. RIP. At least she gets the girl eventually, even if it takes dying twice and being the core catalyst behind an almost-apocalypse.
i dont even have a caption. wels and hypno interactions are just really fun guys
(transcript under cut)
[Transcript:
Wels: -and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Jevin did a bad job. At all.
Hypno: I'm gonna let Jevin know that you hate everything that he's done here. Oh my goodness-
Wels: I mean you can. You can use those exact words if you want.
(Hypno laughs; overlapped.)
Hypno: Alright, I'm gonna tell him!
(Wels, overlapping: You can tell him...)
(Hypno laughs.)
Wels: You can tell him that I think it is big... terrible. Um-
Hypno: It's just awful. Wels hates it, basically.
Wels: Yeah, just- we'll say- tell him, y'know, uh... go back to kiddie Minecraft, Jevin, because uh... this is the worst thing that I have ever seen ever.
Hypno, overlapping: Wow! Wow.
Wels: And it's an affront to my eyeballs.
Hypno: So, Wels, tell us how you really feel. (laughs)
Wels: Well! I mean, I could go on a rant, um- but no. Actually, I do like it. I-
My ultimate advice is to have pure unadulterated hubris about everything artistic and then just run with it until something happens. No more of this "oh nyooo I could NEVER do something like that" stuff. Hubris. Hubris!! Say "fuck it, sure, I could do that". Try!!!