#maybe its the angle

[ghost-inthe-hall]

This motherfucker is in Eden

[smigglescultture]

With every picture I take, I start to look more like Adam Lanza??

[staticsim]

meet theodore stradler, a very unenthusiastic accountant. he def isn't a new sim/character of mine but i heard we need slackers at @kashisun 's sims office so here he is lol

info dump ↓

theo does not suit a 9-5 job. he definitely should've worked in social services (or at least human resources), but he realized that a bit too late. now he's stuck as an accountant until he either goes insane or finds a new job.

he's a bit of a nuisance even if he doesn't realize it. he can't sit still for more than five seconds unless he's VERY focused (which hardly happens). he's always tapping his foot, rocking his chair, etc.

don't bother emailing or interacting with him. even if he hears you, he doesn't. his excuse is that he "can't hear you over the music in his headphones", but half the time they aren't even playing anything.

if he gets bored enough to actually do his work, he's pretty efficient. he'll do nothing useful for most of the day and then get it all done in one hour.

this also means he usually can (or will) leave early, which his coworkers assume is because he's slacking (i mean, yes, it's true), but most days he goes to visit his sick grandpa :,)

yeah he's actually a bit of a softie but will threaten u if u tell him that

[galliumthallium]

I found etho's wallpaper if anyone wants to use it

[steelycunt]

a paperback book isnt alive until you break its spine btw like a long slumbering animal being carefully roused it actually needs you to do that like when you click your knuckles. for your paperback book the breaking of its spine is like the first stretch against your pillow in the morning

[zeravmeta]

upper middle class guda is such a funny unintended consequence of ordeal call 2 because im 100% certain that the writers didn't really intend for it to be like that BUT I think it'd be really funny to misconstrue it a bit and have it explain that guda has very little sense of money especially because they're also surrounded by servants who just throw money into gudas path + the only money theyve used for the past decade(?) is multicolored rocks, golden cups and in-house company credit cryptocurrency to feed to their blorbos

"the ultimate 9-5er of humanity is a rich nepobaby who has never once looked at their bank account out of anxiety so they don't realize theyre a millionaire" is honestly the funniest footnote characterization they could have added to "Norm L. Manne" guda

[mrgintsu]

Very important video yet again

[mishy-mashy]

Just a little fun detail..

THAT KUDO IS SO SHORT HE TUCKS HIS PANTS IN HIGH BOOTS.

Bruce wears those pants just fine, so he wears normal shoes. But Kudo? Look at how big they are on him. He wears boots almost up to his KNEES just to wear those pants. They're so baggy on him that the middle part for where the crotch goes, it's also almost down to his knees

Guy, where'd you get the pants? Are you just that short? Or did you take them from the long-legged Bruce?

[muckyschmuck]

heaven called! ... banned :(

[fumifooms]

"Marchil? I guess I can see it on Chilchuck’s end, but what about Marcille’s? What makes you think she could develop feelings for him?" I’m glad you asked!

The first thing to note is that she does think highly of him

In the page on the right, literally defending his virtues and literally comparing him to Dalclan. And oh…

She does love a brooding mysterious guy who closes himself to love. But surely, Chilchuck isn’t her type at all, right? He’s not princely or knightly at all. In apperances certainly not, both looks wise and demeanor wise, but then that’s why she seeks to know him on a deeper level, to not only look shallowly.

And hmm. Chilchuck really is quite selfless isn’t he? Always looking out for others, and saving specifically her often, always making sure himself and, staying in or even running towards danger for her sometimes. Modesty is often considered heroic…

And can we talk about that drowning one… You can definitely frame the special attention as him knowing she tends to hesitate or be clumsy, and then his insistance on pulling her out of danger that she’s the healer aka the most important to keep alive, but. From the one who says that he just keeps his ass out of fights and won’t help this is a lot of risk to take, and he does die trying to pull her to safety in the dungeon rabbits chapter. And the drowning bit??? That’s when the dungeon collapses. The only reason they DON’T die of drowning here is that the water then gives way to outside. There was NO hope of pulling her to safety here and resurrections would likely not work either, he truly preferred to die with her than try to survive himself.

Sit your ass back DOWN you are in no state, self-sacrifical hero much damn

And Marcille definitely noticed this imo, after all she loves learning all she can about him, remembering things like how he hates waiting on people too. She pays attention to him and what he does and what he says. This to say that it’s notable, whatever reason for it you may think (though we know by this point at least she was already aware he was an adult though it wasn’t internalized), out of everyone it’s Chilchuck’s bed that she wants to sleep in during the Golden Kingdom stay. He’s safe and comforting to her: dependable, the defining trait in her view of him as is shown by the relationship chart in the Adventurer’s Bible.

^ Lending handkerchiefs is a romance trope btw and handkerchiefs have irl history of being used for courting. Especially in old English literature and plays like Shakespeare’s Othello, and personally I do see a lot of Shakespeare in Dalclan (nobility political drama with some romance). There’s how his cowl is a dearly beloved souvenir from his family too, there’s a lot of aesthetic tropes you can apply to him.

All this to say you can 100% romanticize Chilchuck into a princely noble guy if you try and that’s exactly what Marcille does with the wife roleplay. She doesn’t need much in the first place, she latches onto crumbs and makes aesthetic narratives out of details, give her an inch she’ll take a mile.

But what’s interesting about the shift throughout the arc of her and his relationship is that she starts out idealizing him into a little angel of a kid (shapeshifter), and she ends it idealizing him as a virtuous husband and family man instead.

And what’s doubly interesting is that in the former, she’s actively warping who he is personality and demeanor wise to fit the aesthetic, he doesn’t have that bitter pride of not asking for help and the edges have been smoothened. But what she does during the wife roleplay is something else, she acknowledges the flaws and just… Accepts them, rolls with them. She’s aware of his flaws and implements them into the narrative, but the reason why his wife left doesn’t capitalize on them even, rather Chil is chilblivious and his wife loves him very much still, she’s just testing him after having had a night of feeling out of place at his side.

And this is what separated the idealization vs romanticization, she’s not twisting him into someone else she’s just uplifting what he is and focusing on the good sides.

Marcille: "he has a shitty personality sometimes but if he was my husband I’d still cherish him" "If I were your wife I’d be overjoyed to go out with you and would get myself prettied up while you complain about me taking a long time, your friends would tell me that I’m nice and that’d make me happy, but I’d also be sad because you wouldn’t tell me that you love me enough"

He’s angry and his wife left him, he’s *flawed*, but he’s still worth hyping up, still worth having his own romance story, still has a shot of winning back his beloved. She sees him for what he is, human and real and not a carefully scripted character that fits an aesthetic, and she thinks it’s still worthy of love and admiration and fighting for

And what’s funny too is that you might expect her to cool down on him once she learns more about him but actually she only gets increasingly into his business. You tell her your age and next thing you know you promise to introduce her to your family. Give her an inch she takes a mile. And too the thing is, Senshi is equally mysterious but she doesn’t pester him like at all, asks him ONCE about his succubus and he doesn’t even answer and that’s like… It. With Chilchuck it starts off innocently enough with her wanting to know his age, hometown, the stuff she mentions having asked pre-canon. But it just keeps and keeps going and escalating. Think she’ll be satisfied now knowing you have a wife and kids, maybe she’s disillusioned now? Wrong! She wants to know their names and ages and occupations and hey how did you propose to your wife? Do you think she’ll stop after meeting them? What’s next? What will she want to know next????

She’s… Like it’s not a reach that Marcille is all over him. Like it doesn’t mean it’s romantic but she just is. She is not normal about him idk. Can you not ask him about what tongue technique he used when first kissing his wife, give the man breathing room

Marcille could literally go "if I was Chilchuck’s wife" having deeply thought out the hypothetical and people would still ask where anyone sees any romantic potential between them. Oh wait

There’s a platonic explanation for everything (almost?) in Dungeon Meshi don’t say I’m saying otherwise, but it’s definitely not like there’s nothing here to read into lol

Going off a bit more under read bc it’s my fave topic

Marcille has a whole theme with the charming prince trope with her idealization and storybook motif and Chil is kinda the "Well someone perfect like that isn’t very realistic and romance is usually more complex and that’s ok and good and flawed people can still be ✨virtuous✨" catalyst

Do you see do you see she starts canon thinking the most romantic thing is a prince charming but her arc in the end has her romanticizing an average, flawed, real and realistic family man, who’s on the poorer side and is on the verge of divorce. And that’s what he needed, too, seeing the positive of himself and the situation instead of focusing on the negative is explicitly what inspires him to hope that he might be able to reconcile with his wife, gives him the courage and self-esteem to shoot his shot.

He IS a prince figure instead that now it’s not about idealizing the grand and overt it’s about romanticizing the small things in real life!! About finding joy and beauty in things that seem normal or mundane and uplifting them to make the world feel kinder!!!!

He’s the devoted virtuous man that she wantsss not the storybook prince that’s unrealistic and could crumble like a script at any time. He’s the perfect example of a flawed realistic but virtuous & devoted & loving man. Far from a prince charming, but not fully detached from it either. Something worth fighting for despite the flawed cracks. Like literally, flawed romance being worth fighting for is literally the finale of Chilchuck and Marcille’s arc on the matter, where their separate arcs and issues intersect at the most crucial moment.

Marcille is important to Chil’s arc not only because of her optimism, but also because of her interest and knowledge in romance & matters of the heart, and that’s what he needs to both open his heart up to hope and to try to reconcile with his wife, like idk sounds gay

Their arc together is literally learning to 1) see each other for how they are and not undermining their qualities capacities etc etc while still not leaving flaws unchecked either and 2) opening up to people. Marcille LITERALLY makes Chil open his heart up to hope like idk man. What do you want from me. He’s literally the guy helping her through deconstructing novels and fantasy and rose tinted glasses and like. Deconstructing the prince charming figure into something more real but still romantically beautiful like KUI KUI STOOOOP STOP I’M ALREADY HOOKED I’M ALREADY-

 Ok fine that’s me reading into the tropes too much forgive me for being storybook brained but like. Speaking his heart out to a lone woman on a balcony, Romeo and Juliette shit, asking if she, too, doesn’t want to meet his family, madly blushing. And like she’s learned with Chilchuck it’s all in the little things, all the implications he cannot speak aloud. She does reciprocate, does blush madly back, and the first thing she does is shower him in flowers and jewelry and what in her heart is coded as romantic gifts

A lady, stashed away in a high tower by her lonesome, waiting for someone to call out to her from below… Romeo courting type shit with an offer, a heartfelt spiel, implicit confession from underneath her balcony. Offering him flowers because he succeeded in calling out to her heart…….. And they have to climb to her too…. Crazy

Doesn’t it sound like a proposal. One that’s both so storybook-like and not, contrastedly real and grounded, all about the implications rather than in your face grand gestures, "Don’t you want to meet my family?". They literally have an arc about the topic of romance and this is the climax/pinnacle of it like god?? This is @ the woman who said "Chilchuck is a shy/bashful man so I know he wouldn’t tell me he loves me, but…" btw

To quote a friend, truly the shiny secret unlockable dating sim capture target : THE DUNGEON LORD BIT WAS SO FUNNY BECAUSE HE KNEW SHE'D TAKE IT HOOK LINE AND SINKER HES THE ONE WHO GOT HER TO TURN AROUND COMPLETELY SHES LIKE. WIDE EYED FLAG RAISED???? FLAG RAISED WITH CHILCHUCK 👀👀👀‼️👀👀‼️👀

And the way that this is the culmination of their arc together… Like people are not ready for the ‘Chil calling out to dunlord Marcille on the balcony has Romeo and Juliette romance novels imagery’ take. Or the ‘their arc is about growing to see beauty even in the non-idealized, in the flawed and in the real’ take which makes it so so perfect if she were to lower her ideal from a charming elven prince to a virtuous halfling man (which she does end up romanticizing)

So there, you got to witness in real time what happens when I think about marchil for longer than 2 minutes, there are so many layers it’s a deranged rabbithole. I saw the necronomicon of subtext and it’s driving me to madness with forbidden knowledge that no one else sees

……. Like what if I told you she implicitly picked Chilchuck over a "unrealistic prince charming who’s actually disingenuous" much earlier in the story already. If she was given the choice to think through going with a guy that seems perfect and chivalrous like her succubus she’d pick Chilchuck over the other actually. If I sound insane rn tune in for my full analysis on them coming this month hopefully thank youu. Interwoven arcs of fantasy vs reality and idealization vs pessimism I love youuu

So now you know the general thesis of my planned analysis about the importance of the prince charming figure in Marcille and Chilchuck’s arc, where she romanticizes things to a sometimes worrying degree or idealize people into something easy and digestible and poetic (like Chil being a kid, and then him being a virtuous ✨✨✨husband), and how she needs to value aesthetics less and actual acts and facts more, be more grounded (like seeing people for what they are flaws and all, and accepting that people need money and not pulling through on principles of honor or unity shouldn’t get Namari shamed) and a part of that is accepting that Chilchuck is BOTH flawed and virtuous, a loving husband that still has shitty moods and fumbled his marriage so bad etc etc. So it’s like, her image of perfect prince charming that will whisk you away on an ethereal romance -> realistic flawed middle aged dad with personality issues and a failing marriage but he still is worthy of love and having his cute grand romance story and his happy ending. Ik I keep repeating the same point through this but I need it to be burned into everyone’s brains it has its grip on me I can’t do this. They are so special……

[lucky-draws]

-

[pb-dot]

I find the way Fantasy High Junior Year treats religion to be fascinating, and evolving in an interesting way in the last couple of episodes. Like episode 14 makes it pretty clear, through Kristen's parents and Bobby Dawn that the helioic faith, ironically isn't much of a faith. There's no need for faith or belief there, they know who their god, Helio, they know he's a force interacting with their lives and their world, and they "know" that he is the only correct god to follow. This is in part a character flaw on their part, but is in a way also a logcial extrapolation of the cosmology of the D&D universe, or at least the particular branch of it in which Fantasy High resides.

Kristen stands as a stark contrast to this, where faith is all she has. Nobody knows whether Cassandra is alive, dead, or something in-between, and Kristen has chosen to believe that Cassandra is out there, somewhere. In a way, Cassandra is a better diety for doubt and mystery now than she was when she had a physical form one could see and interact with.

This is why the confrontation between Bobby Dawn and Kristen is so interesting to me, because while Bobby is technically correct in that Kristen's god is dead, it should tell him something that Kristen is still able to do the works of a cleric in Cassandra's name. That's not a fail state, that's a level faith that really justifies Kristen's sainthood, hell, we may be past the level of a saint at this point. This is the kind of stuff religious movements gets started off of. This is the kind of stuff that you only read about in ancient histories. It's happening in Bobby Dawn's classroom, and this corn pone televangelist motherfucker is too blinded by bitterness of Kristen ditching his religion, too drunk on the certainty of following The Right Way, to see this real life miracle unfold in front of him. This man shouldn't be a cleric teacher. Even if he managed to teach without biasing towards his Mean Girls crew of divinities and their followers, which I have no faith (heh) that he is able, or willing, to do, he still fails on a fundamental level. Bobby Dawn is beholding a wonder of modern faith, a messianic figure in the making, and opposes it. Not as a matter of conviction, but because is unable to comprehend it because it's not happening on "his team."

It's really interesting stuff, and it's shaping up to be one hell of a character arc for Saint Kristen Chillis Applebees as long as she doesn't get expelled.

[cluescorner]

Arlecchino's whole deal is unbelievable

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder what's causing my weird powers? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta become King and then kill my "Mother".

*Kills Clervie and "Mother"*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I was able to defeat a Fatui Harbinger when I'm like 17 or so? I can't really worry about that right now tho, I've gotta be in jail and become a Harbinger.

*Is in jail for a while and becomes a Harbinger*

Arlecchino: Huh I wonder why I am-

Pierro: Hey what's up hello, anyways you're descended from the Crimson Moon Dynasty of Khaenri'ah. I'm sure that this is a lot for you to take in so-

Arlecchino: Ok.

Pierro: ...You're just cool with that?

Arlecchino: IDK maybe? I can't really worry about that at the moment, I'm a father now. This orphanage full of children I love (who also are child soldiers and are not allowed to leave or else I'll execute them except maybe now I'm just gonna wipe their memories IDK I'm morally complex) isn't gonna run itself.

*Runs the orphanage/spy recruitment initiative*

Me, the fucking player: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE KHAENRI'AN? WHY WASN'T THIS BROUGHT UP IN YOUR FUCKING QUEST?? OR ANYTHING ELSE????

Arlecchino, talking to me through my phone: I honestly don't know why you care, I'm too busy to give a shit. Anyways, I'm gonna go fight fate itself I guess. I'm sure that I don't share any thematic parallels with any other Khaenri'an characters (particularly as it relates to acting and family angst) and that I haven't made the idea of 'curses' on Khaenri'ans and what they entail even more complicated than they already were. See ya.

[thompsborn]

14 years old, only like a month into being spider-man, peter takes down a mugger and the guy is cursing peter out and peter just calmly says "i'm fourteen" and watches this dude have a crisis

"no you're not"

"i literally am. did you not hear my voice cracking every two seconds? pretty sure i only started going through puberty last week"

"you're lying"

"believe what you want"

"why would you tell me that if it's true"

"because no one will believe you and i think that's funny. also i want you to know that you just lost to a freshman in high school. even if you don't believe me, you can't prove that i'm lying. this is never going to leave your brain. i won the physical fight and now i'm playing with psychological warfare. and i called the cops. anyways, bye!"

mugger gets arrested and is like "no seriously i swear to god he was in these like red and blue pajamas and had a mask and goggles and he said he was fourteen and psychological warfare and-"

[skunkes]

cheye images i enjoy and realized i hadnt posted

[silasplaskett]

the real question is why does the bucktommy kiss look exactly like that one really popular buddie manip u guys know the one im talking about