#loops and holes

[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.

[lucabyte]

hole

[poliffwoog]

The guide fweheuhuieheueuhehehhehehiheh

[flocklings]

i'm obsessed with time loops. it's such a tricky thing to pull off, and i have yet to find a story that scratches the itch properly, but the allure of characters being trapped and the grief of being trapped on top of whatever the story is about is so tangible, as humans we mourn the passage of time with nostalgia but time is a promise that despite the good and the bad, time trudges forward--the character of a loop is stripped of that law, and it's a prime environment for angst and terror and it's just so delicious--especially if they never escape, if they accept fate and turn their torment into comfort.

[voidshrub]

“Time is running out… make a move!”

Heh.. I guess you could say…. he’s drowning in his own tho- *I am forcibly removed from the stage and thrown into the Abyss*

I tried out a bunch of new things with this one… I’m really happy with how it turned out :)

Kinda wish it could flash to the beat though…

Clicky wicky (pink bastard) belongs to @brightgoat ! And there’s a veeeeery brief appearance of @e40536 ‘s Link (green) in there as well! Next art will be an actual browser history post… two browser doodles in a month (hopefully) guys… I’m on a roll!!!

Individual frames under the cut for your viewing pleasure (and because I had to kill the gif quality a little to make it fit in the post)

[buiemies]

One more chance! 🐰💞

[chronologically-challenged]

You have an exit wound where your heart should be.

[redysetdare]

One thing I've noticed about the erasure of aspec identities is that it's eerily familiar to the erasure of non-binary identities. Often times Aspec identities are viewed as Blank slates to slap other identities on top of - similar to non-binary identities.

A character uses strictly they/them and people will say "Okay but I'm going to use he/him or she/her because x looks like a boy/girl to me" A character strictly states they are not interested in romance and people will say "okay but I'm going to call them a lesbian/gay/any other sexuality because obviously they must be interested in x even though they said they weren't interested at all."

"I can ignore this characters canonical non-binary identity because people can headcanon whatever they want and I headcanon them as cis instead! no this isn't erasure!!! it's fiction it doesn't hurt anyone! pronouns don't equal gender anyways!!!"

"I can ignore this characters canonical aspec identity because people can ship/headcanon whatever they want and I headcanon this character as allo/not aspec instead! no this isn't erasure!!! it's fiction it doesn't hurt anyone! aspecs can still date and have sex anyways!!!"

idk as someone who is both nonbinary and aroace I'm having a sense of déjà vu.

[wybienova]

im feeling good abt the work i made this last.. hour. so hereeee my wip :3 remember it is a wip and im struggling thru procreate dreams so . be nice

anyways enjoy this for now. this song has become so siffrin to me

[eigenraptor]

very very dramatic depiction of what it's like to loop back in ISAT

(source for time dilation)

[grechsblog]

Thinking again about the game and its end fight and do you guys think bigfrin could be classified as a black hole or as a supernova

[urfaveblackhole]

loop instarsandtime?

Loop from In Stars and Time is getting sucked into a black hole!

[lucabyte]

A belief in Nominative Determinsim

[chiquilines]

Its been ages,,, i missed them

[looped-140-and-counting]

One day, Isabeau suggests giving the Sadness the Dagger.

Odile gives him a dead eyed stare while Mirabelle looks shocked that he'd suggest such a thing. That's Siffrin's dagger, after all! They can't give away their friend's stuff all willy-nilly! And if they start pretending this Sadness could be like Siffrin... or, as most if not all believe, is Siffrin...

But it's hard to acknowledge it, or even bring it up. And Isabeau points out that since the Sadness is capable of fighting for them, a weapon might be useful.

Plus, deep down he's already figured out that this Sadness is Siffrin. He just wants to give it back to them.

[Equip the Sadness with the Dagger?]

> Yes

[...The Sadness is already so strong that you don't notice a difference.]

[kurohaai]

死ぬまでピュアピュアやってんのん？

Still image ver.