#(rotates them around in my brain)

[z0mbiew00d]

Op, op you get me so much

Op you UBDERSTAND ME

They’re not toxic they’re complicated and elaborate and detailed and okay maybe a LITTLE toxic VUT BOT INTENTUONALLY they love and care for each other they do they’re both just bad at showing it and Scott is so protective and scared to lose Jimmy it makes Jimmy feel bad and andhsjdhbf /pos this post is everything to me

I get how tempting it is to just label flower husbands as “toxic” and move on, but god they can be SO much more nuanced than that, it makes me insane.

I think something that goes largely unexplored by the fanbase is c!scott’s obsession with composure. he’s clearly very proud of his ability to stay calm under pressure and be two steps ahead of everyone else— not that he’s afraid to rely on people, him and cleo very clearly have that unshakable trust between them, but i think that sometimes he gets so wrapped up in being steady, reliable scott, never hot-headed, never spiteful, or clumsy, or nervous.

and jimmy is a very real threat to that composure, more often than not.

and i think the way their relationship functions in 3rd life, while steady at the time, definitely set them up for complications down the road. scott, for as fiercely dedicated to his allies as he is, kind of tends to handle jimmy with kid gloves for the earlier parts of their relationship. he’s not very good at the death game, but that’s fine, he doesn’t need to be, scott will take care of it— he’ll get them set up with armor and potions and walls and jimmy can do… whatever it is he does when scott’s not around. mostly getting swindled, if he had to guess. but it’s fine, because scott can be steady, level headed, clever—

i do think most of scott’s ribbing about how he doesn’t know why he lets jimmy do anything when all he does is get scammed half the time is genuinely all in good fun, (jimmy is more than happy to play the fool most of the time, if only to bring a little bit of levity to things) it is super symptomatic of the way scott actually thinks about him. i don’t believe he thinks jimmy is actually stupid or anything, but i do think scott doesn’t quite trust him to get anything done. scott would never in a million years let himself lean on jimmy for any kind of support, because in scott’s mind jimmy’s job is to be bright and brash and only listen to that heart of his that’s too big for his body, too big for this game.

and i think too often we forget just how much losing jimmy destroyed scott in 3rd life. you ever think about how wrecked he must’ve been to place 10th despite being a consistent finalist in every other season? do you think about how all he has left is the burning, white-hot urge for revenge from the second jimmy’s body hit the ground?

i don’t think scott ever wants to feel like that again. i don’t think scott wants anyone to see him like that again. i think scott tries very hard to love jimmy from a safe distance where no one gets hurt. and i think that distance fucking kills jimmy, metaphorically speaking.

(also, tangentially related, i think there’s something to be said for how instantly tango goes “we only have a short time together, your curse will probably get us killed, and that’s fine.” and how jealous scott gets of that sentiment. as far as scott is concerned, tango and jimmy are of the same niche— they feel everything, loudly, even if it causes problems and even if it gets messy. and god that just makes his blood boil.)

i’m just so… entranced with the way scott carries himself with so much confidence and it’s not like he’s insecure, he really believes that, he’s a strong player and he knows that, but also revealing any emotion he deems to be “ugly” or “messy” makes him start to completely unravel. the driving force behind him is always love and loyalty and protectiveness over the people he cares about, but he’s juggling that with being dead set on never getting so close that losing them will completely ruin him.

anyway, this is getting away from me, but i think a lot of jimmy’s frustration with scott comes from the fact that he refuses to let their relationship go both ways, and i think by the time of the infamous “say i love you back” scene in limlife he’s just exhausted with throwing himself repeatedly against scott’s brick wall of perfectionism. that, and the whole Situation between them in double life, which i could honestly make it’s own post but good god i need to STOP typing or this will go on forever. forgive my completely disorganized ramblings i just have been trying to get all this down on paper FOREVER

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

[bee-calm]

kounene besties you will always be famous to me

[lucabyte]

even dogs pass the mirror test

[huginsmemory]

Really can't get over the CAN WE TALK? stickynotes. And I mean I think part of it really kinda clicked when I've seen some fanart about it. We really see in TBOB that Ford after beginning to hear voices slipping through the cracks and questions Bill, to learn what Bill really intended, ENTIRELY shuts down his communication with Bill. And you see Bill when he gets questioned in that moment responds with a heavily implied dialogue along the lines of "haha, yeah I tricked you, I'm here to overtake your dimension". But Bill still expects Ford to respond to him in some way, and it's very clear that Bill is shocked when Ford REFUSES to talk to him. And what's interesting is Bill doesn't just IMMEDIATELY begin with threats; he actually leaves stickynotes first, before Bill realizes he's FUCKED UP big time and gets really nasty. There's something pleading with the CAN WE TALK? sticky note. There's a point where Bill does realize he's not getting what he expected, that he's missing Ford, and that he's willing to possibly even smooth some things over, explain things better (maybe even the part that the nightmare dimension is unraveling perhaps) or persuade Ford into Bill's plans. But Ford refuses, and it's already too late for Bill because just like with Stan, Ford feels betrayed and when Ford feels betrayed he'll mercilessly cut the person out of his life. Ford deeply, deeply holds hurt and betrayal and as a result he has zero desire to speak with Bill again (and also uhhh big red flag to take over the world, so also. Yeah).

And it's interesting because it's a slower ramp up until Bill is desperate and threatens, uses violence, because that's what he's always used when it comes down to it, and an ultimatum is given. It wasn't just threats out of the gate; Bill DID try to speak to Ford (btw this is not me being like Ford should have spoken to Bill and it would be magically healthy, cause no matter how you slice it it's just a toxic mess tbh). Threats out of the gate would have been faster; there's over three weeks in the timeline, before Ford goes through the portal (althought we don't get too much context around exactly when everything occurs). That's a lot of time! But Bill didn't threaten Ford immediately. And I think part of that reason is because Bill expected Ford to speak to him, expected their relationship or at least their project to mean enough to Ford that Ford would speak to him and then continue their work, once his anger cooled off. And I think also part of it is because Bill cared about Ford, not that he'd admit it in the moment; but he'd rather Ford willingly be alongside him, then have to force him through threats to do the work on the portal. You see that, even after Ford spends 30 years trying to kill him and nearly even does, when he offers him during wierdmageddon to be a henchmaniac. Bill cares about Ford, wants Ford beside him. But then Ford continues to refuse to engage with him at all, and Bill realizes he's lost Ford, and progressively gets more desperate and angrier as he's still refused, and falls into the violence he usually uses, to get Ford to cooperate.

Anyhow it's one of those things that you wonder what would've happened if they DID speak, but that would ultimately be defying a big part of who Ford is... So in a way it's a juicy juicy tidbit to chew on, the implications beyond the writing on the sticky note.

[raspberrypossums]

I think about the fact that Kremy probably learned or thought he could only trust himself and no one else but slowly over time Gid became the exception to that. It went from always looking out for himself to always looking out for himself and Gideon

In every escape plan, every get away, anything, even when he’s like cursed to not trust anyone, Gid’s always an exception to that

Like theyre so inescapably tied together

They make me ill

[dailygihun]

day 12 || underrated trio in my humble opinion (just lineart under the cut cuz im stuck on which to post)

[critter-covenant]

BOOM frowning critters yuri be upon ye

Catfeine and Dogpressed by @/eggritos!! :D

[carbonatedjem]

Only posting these cause I mentioned them offhandedly in a previous reblog, would rather not have these kinds of pics be a recurring thing on my account if I can help it. First of these was made during the voting period of an official Death Battle poll last year. Second was a commission/birthday gift.

I like the first one, I remember having a lot of fun making it, fun fact i forgot what the fuck the big bang monokuma looked like and genuinely just thought it was a giant monokuma with no other defining traits. can you tell this was before(?) the danganronpa brainrot really burrowed into my head again.

Second one I really like how i did junko and the major, the other half i feel like i kinda botched and i feel bad about it.

i only vaguely understand the debates and i generally do not care i just like to draw

anyway i'm gonna draw werewolf cuddling now

[wwheeljack]

A piece I commissioned from @/takes_few on Twitter of Hook and Swindle (from Fall of Cybertron). They were an entirely unexpected brain rot for me, but while writing Hook alongside @weaimtomaim's Swindle, I became obsessed with this FOC specific dynamic.

Swindle deserves comfort, and Hook being the one to give the comfort is a part of their dynamic that keeps them rotating in my head.

[tuckedawaytulip]

Idk how good of an idea this is, but my brain has been rotating the idea of Martin having an emotional breakdown of sorts at some point past when everyone has usually gone home, and trying to hide in Jon's office so he can cry about his fears of friends getting replaced. Only to find Jon hasn't quite left yet and he ends up getting comforted by Jon.

[friendlyneighbourhoodelf]

brain officially back in codywan mode. rotating them in the microwave. the simultaneous intimacy and separation of it all

[owlsoap]

You say that I'm delirious / But I'm not the one holding the gun

soulsov fanart inspired by the song "delirious" by susanne sundfør (if you are a soulsov fan pleaaase listen to this song I'm so serious)

[imscaredofyou2824]

i hate when I get into a book with no fandom. It’s just me and my feelings I guess :(

[lizardson]

im obsessed with mike walters he's gay he's a cowboy he's the bear he's never made a normal decision in his life he's cut off so many limbs he's the most and least killable man in the universe he's an anarcho communist he dropped his boyfriend husband into the pacific ocean he eats a normal amount of biscuits and gravy what a guy

[4ce160-art]

They have taken over my brain :pensive:

I'm trying to work out some timeline stuff/i just wanted to draw them because they're neat (I just pitcure them as being close platonically because i'm aroace and i think it's cool)

Smaller versions of the doodles because I don't quite trust tumblr:

This one was just me trying to pin down Hosehead's body language. He strikes me as someone who hunches over or folds in on himself a bunch

This one's silly and inspired by me listening to "Rain" by MAN WITH A MISSION (potetial volume warning maybe). There's multiple singers and the guy who does the shoutier main-chorus bits sounds exactly like what Siren sounds like in my mind which is hilarious to me

This one's me trying to vizualise stuff. I imagine they shared a tiny apartement on Cybertron (at some point in time before mtmte i'm still figuring exact timeline out) for a bit and Siren moved in after Hosehead. i also imagine that most of the stuff there's Hosehead's as Siren strikes me as someone who doesn't hold onto a lot of stuff. There are a few of those containers you use for moving still strewn about there because they haven't bothered clearing them away yet). There's also some other timeline stuff i'm debating for now, the last doodle happens shortly after Siren arrives on Cybertron or something. I feel like they havent spoken in a while at that point due to just being in different locations etc. so I wanted to go with like a slightly gloomy/awkward vibe there lmao