#several things to say...

[steamanband]

Another day goes by where I think about Jon's weird human fingers

[meatppie666]

WORK IN PROGRESS...of something...for class...haha....

[spitblaze]

I don't see people gas up gnc and butch transfems nearly enough, can we get a fuckin round of applause for gnc and butch transfems

[horsegirlhob]

Devon walking in like "I have a slightly dumber idea" meanwhile Mark's just finished having spur-of-the-moment experimental brain surgery in his basement don't worry girl you're still by far the most sane reasonable person on this show.

[whoreiorcats]

Adam Scott at every opportunity: Mark is madly in love with Helly, she’s his raison d’etre, his everything, he’s her right hand arm man. Her silly rabbit.

Britt Lower at every opportunity: What if Helly and Gemma got together though? What if they were in love, couldn’t that be beautiful and true? What do you think, Dichen?

Dichen Lachman: I think Ms Casey is very doe-like with a curious nature :3

[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.

[divorcedtom]

SEVERANCE (2022 - )

What was she like? Like you. Or you're like her? I don't know.

[arcade-confetti]

Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest

Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here

Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭

It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony

[thepandalion]

ok no I need to talk about this

the reason ralsei is changing is because of susie

the way he said it, darkners that are based on memories of loved ones can "only appear in specific darkness". meaning, originally, ralsei was kris' memory

and, similarly, gerson was presumably Alvin's?

except. gerson came back. it's the third sanctuary. a different dark world. but he's still here. and why?

because SUSIE remembers him. she wrote alvin the letter from him. she fought him and won and came back to look for him. because now he's in her memories, too.

following that logic, of course ralsei is in her memories too. more prominently, too, each time she returns to an adventure. he strays further from the blurry memories kris has, into something that's both theirs and hers

and, while we're at it, maybe ours, too. we shape him with our choices because we're part of this team too

[merrigel]

Sometimes your buddy tells you to do smth with your OCs and things spiral out of control?? (song is Lost Library by Louie Zong!)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS x Firefly AU: A ragtag crew.

[neverbelessthan]

SEVERANCE 2x10 / 1x04 | "Whatever this life is, it's all that we have."

[horsegirlhob]

One very funny thing about Severance to me is how like, they reveal Ms. Cobel lives next to Mark and I thought "oh wow the company really keeps a tight eye on their employees." Then time goes on and it becomes increasingly obvious that no actually this woman is just a huge freak about Mark specifically. She's baking him weird cookies. She's breaking into his house. She's making him spend time with his dead wife he doesn't remember. She's skipping work to pretend to be his sisters lactation consultant. She's going to parties with him and hugging him when he says he'll quit Lumon. I'm obsessed with how much she's obsessed with him I need to know what her fucking deal is.

[bean-winchester]

Everything’s getting messy on severance, baby!!!They’re humanizing the people who do violence, without excusing the violence they do!!! Milchick, and Helena, and even Harmony Cobel are all fighting their own battles!!!!! And even worse, they’re showing already humanized and dear characters doing violence, without making them any less dear or human!!!!!!! Dylan is cruel to Helly in what may be their last interaction (but we understand it!), Burt banishes Irving (but we see it as kindness!), Gretchen truly does treat innie Dylan “like everything��s for [her],” insensitive to the power dynamic between them until it’s too late not to wound him so deeply he’d rather be dead than bear it (but she didn’t mean to!). And dare I say even Devon?!?! She’s gentle with innie Mark to be sure, but she didn’t wake him up for him, she did it for her mark, and her Gemma— you can tell by how she leads him like a baffled baby animal up the stairs to a woman about to end his life as he knows it!!!! Like everything’s for them!!!!!

Maybe violence is everywhere? But so is the human spirit?

[ikiprian]

Clone’s Best Friend

“Cute dog!” the girl says. “What breed is he?”

“Uh,” blinks Kon. "Are you asking what breed Superdog is?"

“Uh, duh?”

Well. She’ll have to forgive him his stunned expression, ‘cause he doesn’t usually run into other dog walkers on this path. This is, of course, because “path” is used in the loosest sense, the one that connotates direction and not tread ground, and the “walk” bit is entirely inapplicable, with all of them currently flying one thousand feet above sea level.

“Cujo’s a rescue,” she continues, swinging her feet in the sky, “so we don’t know for sure, but my sister thinks part husky, part shar pei. Half-and-half, like me!”

Cujo is also, apparently, half green and half glowing. He wiggles happily in a play-bow. It’s very cute, except for the way he’s the size of a small house.

Krypto’s tough, though. He barks and chases his new friend through cloud cover. Gamely, Cujo flees. They frolic in the chilly condensation, occasionally poking a head out before diving back in, like a fox in a snowdrift.

Neither of them see anything surprising about this. It’s all good fun. And, well. Krypto’s always been a good judge of character.

Kon turns back to the girl and gives her a megawatt smile.

“He’s Kryptonian. Like me. But he looks like a white lab!”

[spooksier]

joint lumon/oiar company kickball tournament tomorrow at 11am