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shadowtraveled · 1 year ago

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"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.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them.#hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore.#but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

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totally-here · 10 months ago

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3 times Phantom's Guardian was Mentioned + 1 Time He Showed Up

One

Phantom’s introduction to Young Justice wasn’t as dramatic as Empress’ or Slobo’s, or even Arrowette’s first introduction to the cave. No, it wasn’t during the Olympics, or on a battlefield, and he didn’t come in injured and looking for help.

Impulse just brought Phantom in one day and insisted that he should join because he’s their age, interested in justice, and now that Greta’s human again they need another ghost member. So Phantom stayed, popping in and out for missions but never really sticking around all that long.

Today is one of the days that Phantom’s with them on a mission, that being looking around a lab of the Brain’s that had an energy surge recently, despite it being presumably abandoned.

Kon got paired up with Phantom to check the rest out first, since they both have better hearing than Anita and Tim, who were both still in the main room working on checking the computers for previous activity.

The room is dark except for the light green ball glowing slightly above Phantom’s hand. He waves it around enough for it to reflect off of glass, then throws it up to the ceiling. The light expands enough to illuminate the room.

Phantom mumbles about not knowing he could do that. Kon ignores him and moves closer to inspect the glass tubes to the side of several monitors set up.

“Looks like cloning equipment,” Phantom says, casually. He drags a finger through the dust gathering on one of the monitors. “Don’t think they’ve been activated recently, though, so that’s good.”

“What? You got a problem with clones or something?” It’s a quick and defensive answer, and Phantom puts his hands up in surrender.

“Not in concept.” He shrugs and joins Kon near the tubes. “But not a lot of people ask before making clones.”

“So I don’t need to sic Superman on you?” Obviously Kon could chew Phantom out himself, but few can do a “not mad, just disappointed” face better than Clark.

Phantom scrunches his face. “Why would you need to?”

Kon stops pretending to inspect the tube and stares at Phantom. “You do know I’m a clone, right?” The blank look on Phantom’s face tells him that no, he did not. “Well I am. Clone of Superman, though we’re pretty much brothers now.”

“Cool,” Phantom says, not a bit less friendly. He hesitates for a second before continuing, “Could I maybe ask you how you got there? Me and my clone have landed on cousins, but that was also, like, given to us by her evil dad. So.”

Phantom trails off. Huh, that makes three members of the team that have been cloned. Not a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened three times.

“You’re making sure she feels accepted, right?”

“Yeah! Well, whenever she’s around. She,” Phantom waves his hand around, looking for the right word, “She’s a wanderer. Exploring the world and stuff. But Richard has a room for her at home, and I remind her of that whenever she does stop by.”

“Well, first of all, don’t push it so hard,” Kon says. Phantom nods enthusiastically. “And second, who’s Richard?”

Kon doesn’t know a lot of Richards, and he doesn’t think that Phantom ever mentioned one before. Or even if he remembers his living life.

“Oh, he’s my, uh, guardian? I guess that’s the best term. The guy I’m living with who forces me to go to school sometimes.” Phantom looks away and back to the tubes.

Before Kon can ask for more details, Robin and Empress come in with a report of dead computers and wanting to know where they’re at with the cloning room.

They’re unimpressed with their lack of progress.

Two

Wally doesn’t really need to come by the Hamilton Lodge that often, not when that’s Young Justice’s territory and he doesn’t want to get involved in all of That.

But Red Tornado said that the team has a file on a planet that’s very quickly becoming a league problem, and he figured it might be a good time to try to check in with Bart, anyway. Make sure he hasn’t run any cars off cliffs again and all that.

So he stops by Manchester to ask Bart about the file, then they both head East to actually find it.

When they arrive at the hotel minutes later, Wally’s surprised to actually find it… clean? There’s no visible trash or overturned furniture or anything else he’d expect from an abandoned hotel filled with teenagers. Well, maybe not filled, lately. He doesn’t think anyone’s living here currently, with Greta at Elias’ for the school year and Slobo gone.

Still, the room smells slightly of artificial pine scent, and Bart perks up before disappearing and reappearing rapidly, holding a teammate up by his armpits. Said teammate just accepts this, his legs folding into a wispy tail, and head rolling against his shoulders.

“This is Phantom!” Bart holds him up higher. Phantom waves. Wally’s only heard of him through Max’s updates, the same way he would hear about Preston or Carol, but with more wariness about the supposed ghost.

Actually looking at the pale face and glowing green eyes contrasting against the darker than dark jumpsuit, Wally’s a little more ready to accept his claim at being undead.

“He stress cleans,” Bart explains, moving to carry Phantom under his arm. Wally bites down the urge to tell him to put him down, but only because Phantom doesn’t resist the hold, only moving to get into a more comfortable position. His hands are touching the floor. “So what happened?”

Bart directs the question downwards, and Phantom heaves a very dramatic sigh. Definitely a teenager. It does raise the question of who exactly this kid’s mentor is. Hopefully he does have one. Maybe he’s the Spectre’s kid?

Phantom phases through the arm holding him only to lay on top of Bart’s hair. “I accidentally called Richard dad. And then fled.”

Bart nods sagely. “Classic. One time I accidentally called Max dad, so I had to start a fire to distract him.”

Phantom sighs again, almost dreamily. “Genius.”

Wally doesn’t have time to unpack all of that. Well he does, but he’s not going to, because there’s really only one Richard that comes to mind that might have the heart to take in a dead kid, even if he doesn’t go by his full name.

But surely Dick would have told him, or any other Titan, if he had adopted a kid. Right?

But there’s still a little shadow of doubt. Maybe Dick wanted it to be a secret, or it was really new or had a rocky start. Phantom doesn’t seem to hold himself like a Bat, but it’s not a guarantee Dick would have trained him.

“The lodge looks nice,” Wally offers out loud, which Phantom shrugs at and wraps his tail around Bart’s head to keep secure. “Anyway, Impulse. The file on Myrg?”

“Oh yeah!” Again, Bart disappears then reappears a few seconds later with a paper file. They really need to start digitizing more of these things. “That’s the planet where we played baseball so that they wouldn’t destroy Earth!”

“You what.”

The prospect of Dick following in his dad’s footsteps is forgotten in the face of what the hell Young Justice got up to on Myrg.

Three

Tim may be in a…Predicament.

It’s not his fault. Really. He knew what he was doing. He couldn’t let a civilian fall for the trap. But they were already so close, so he just, kinda, pushed himself into the rope instead.

So there Robin is, tied upside down in a warehouse, with the Joker below next to an overly complicated control panel. The clown’s rambling about bombs hidden all over the city that Tim knows Batman is already tracking down with Batgirl.

Tim’s not really paying attention to the rant because of that, more focused on wiggling enough to get the spare mini-birdarang out of his glove to cut the rope without notifying the Joker.

“Yikes, bad time?” Asks Phantom’s voice beside him. Based on the source and accounting for the slight echo, he’s floating with his head near Tim’s, likely upside down. “Want some help?”

Tim gets the birdarang out and starts sawing at the thick rope. They should be fine anyway, but stalling the Joker for extra time would be helpful. “Can you possess the Joker? Just hold him still.”

“The correct term is overshadow, but sure.” The voice disappears, and a few seconds later the Joker freezes.

His body jerks forward, then backward, and a laugh chokes out of his throat. His hand claws over his mouth at the noise and he hunches over. All movement halts before he rights himself, shaking out his hands and rolling his shoulders. Phantom looks up at Tim and his eyes are glowing.

Tim cuts through the rope, kicking and using the momentum to right himself and land on his feet. He brushes past Phantom in Joker’s body to handle the control panel. He turns off the radio broadcast and dismantles the bomb strapped to the panel.

Threat handled, he turns to Phantom and holds up some handcuffs. “Let me arrest you?”

Phantom obliges, turning the Joker’s body around and putting his hands behind his back. Tim lets him walk by himself out of the warehouse and moves the handcuffs around a lamppost. The Joker’s body jerks again, then slumps forward, just as Phantom reappears next to him, scowling down at the unconscious body.

“That felt really slimy. Zero out of ten, would not do again,” Phantom grouches.

“Why’re you in Gotham?” Tim asks. It’s not like Phantom makes a habit of visiting. The last time he came into the city, he complained about feeling the dead under the streets. Fortunately, that let Tim uncover a few tunnels that Talons travel through. Phantom, however, was unnerved by the Talons and left quickly.

“Oh, Solomon Grundy’s back in our sewers. Richard said I should probably tell one of you Gotham heroes, since you keep track of those guys.” He shakes out his hands like they were cramped in the Joker.

They hadn’t seen Grundy in a while. Tim assumed he was currently in a less violent personality. “What’s he doing?”

Phantom shrugs. “Just chilling. Mostly underground. I tried to talk to him but he only grunted back at me. He also tried to pick me up, dunno what that was about.”

“Maybe because you’re both dead?” Tim guessed. That would be a surface level connection. Ivy and Woodrue have had more luck working with Grundy than anyone, and Phantom definitely doesn’t have the connection to the Green that’d help with that.

Police lights turn around the corner, and Tim shoots a grapple to get to the roof above them. Phantom follows, but disappears as soon as they’re on the roof. Going back home, probably.

Cass drops down from the roof she was listening on. “Richard?”

“Not the same one.”

They both stick around long enough to watch the Joker get put into the cop car.

Plus one

A spaceship landed in the forests of New York, and Cassie’s team was the first to respond to it. Technically not respond, but check it out, since there wasn’t any alert or anything.

Still, Wonder Girl has Empress, Robin, and Superboy on the other side of the ship, watching what looks like the back door, while she, Impulse, and Phantom watch the other door and main window. She has binoculars, but the windows are so tinted she can’t quite make anything out.

No aliens have come out yet, and she hesitates to have anyone go in, in case whoever inside does turn hostile.

Impulse has offered to run through a total of five times already, and it’s a testament to his restraint that he hasn’t, and a testament to Cassie’s that she hasn’t yelled at him yet. Phantom at least isn’t being annoying, but he’s not necessarily helpful, either. He’s not even watching the spaceship anymore. Now he’s trying to make a flower crown out of dandelions.

“Door’s opening on our side,” Robin says from the comms. “But no one’s coming out.”

“Alright, good enough to try to get in,” Cassie decides. She turns to Phantom, who’s closing off the circle of flowers. Beside him, Impulse has since pulled out a gameboy. “Phantom, go in invisibly through the open door and report back. Try to see what their plans are.”

“Oh, sure. One second.” Phantom finishes the crown and tries to put it on Bart’s head. It doesn’t quite fit over his mane of hair, but Phantom shrugs and leaves it sitting there anyway before going invisible.

“Maybe I should shave my head again,” Bart says as his game character dies.

He gets a resounding no in response.

Half an hour later they have a very annoyed Green Lantern lecturing them about league jurisdiction and knowing when to call someone else.

Apparently, the alien ship was just stopping to complete some maintenance, and did not appreciate any spying on them, and especially did not appreciate who did it. Green Lantern was more than happy to explain that Wonder Girl’s team is not really a part of the Justice League and he can help with their maintenance. They denied his help and left to find a place with less people in it.

“-and you!” Green Lantern rounds on Phantom next, but Cassie knows none of them are really listening. Sure, they messed up by freaking out the visiting aliens, and yeah maybe they should have contacted the league about it, but they’ve dealt with stuff worse than this! It’s not Cassie’s fault she thought that this would have stuck to the formula.

“Who even are you?” Green Lantern runs a hand through his black hair, stupid green gauntlets shining in the sunlight. “Do I need to call your mentor?” He frowns. “Or do they know you mess up alien technology by just being around it?”

Phantom scoffs and rolls his eyes. “How was I supposed to know their tech would go all fuzzy when I came in?”

“You wouldn’t have to know if you just stayed out of the spaceship!”

“Hey!” Cassie cuts in. “Technically that was my call. It’s not all on Phantom.”

“I still could've been more careful,” Phantom says to her, ignoring Green Lantern as they argue about blame.

“Cut it out for a second, okay?” Green Lantern puts a hand between them and they stop to glare at him. He pulls the hand back. “Look, can I just talk to one of your adults about this?”

Robin glares. “We don’t need an adult. We have this under control.”

“Only because I’m here now.”

“I’ll call my mentor,” Phantom says. Kon opens his mouth, most likely to offer to call Superman instead in hopes of a lighter sentence, but Bart covers his mouth, smiling like he knows something Cassie doesn’t. Tim and Anita share a look, and don’t intervene as Phantom pulls out a phone from his chest.

It rings once before it’s picked up. Cassie can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Kon’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Hey, do you think you can pick me up? Green Lantern wants to talk to you.” Phantom looks Green Lantern up and down then says, “No, this one doesn’t have a cape.”

Phantom says goodbye after rattling off their coordinates, hangs up, and stares at Green Lantern in silence for a few seconds.

And then a swirling mass of black seeps into the space next to Phantom. The end of a cane steps out of it, followed by a leg, then the rest of the immaculately dressed man holding the handle of the cane that’s shaped like a bird’s head.

“Phantom,” The man says. His voice drips with condescension in only a way a british accent can, yet Phantom smiles up at him. The shadowy portal behind him disappears. “What, exactly, happened?”

“That’s the fucking Shade,” Anita hisses to Robin, who shrugs noncommittedly at her. Green Lantern seems to recognise him too, taking a step back and clenching his hand that holds his ring.

“Well, the team and I were staking out this spaceship–super cool, by the way–and I went inside to check it out, but my presence messed with their tech–which was an accident–and they freaked out, so I freaked out, and then we kinda got into a little fight until Green Lantern came to mediate.”

“Hm. Is that right?” The Shade asks Green Lantern, who nods slowly, still anticipating an attack. “It seems like the problem’s fixed, then.”

“Well, yes, but–”

“And it does seem about time for these kids to get home, doesn't it?” The Shade pulls out an actual pocket watch, chain and all, from his suit pocket and takes his time in checking it. “I’ll see them home.”

Shadows grow from behind the team, swirling until they become a giant, gaping maw that swallows them up and spits them out in a different forest, or maybe just a different part of the same forest.

Either way, Cassie has to take a moment to make sure she doesn’t throw up from the sudden vertigo the shadow portal caused.

The Shade looks at Phantom, and raises an eyebrow. “You can’t expect me to always bail you out.”

Phantom shrugs, looking guilty. “I know. Thanks, Richard.”

Oh, so that’s who Richard is. Annoyingly, neither Tim or Bart look surprised by this revelation.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #dp x dc crossover #this post was brought to you by me recently finishing starman 1994 #which i totally recommend it was rlly good and im happy i was able to read the physical version because there are some double page spreads #that were beautiful and i just know the online ver would've butchered #this is also part of my put danny in opal agenda!!#come on guys!! partially if not all powered by cosmic energy #missing heroes other than like benetti and the shade as far as i know #and used to have a ghostly curse on it!!! perfect place #also it's no-pulse coded because im still rotating them in my head like a microwave #the gl is supposed to b Kyle but sry if he's off i only know him from his appearances in yj and hitman #and i tried to do a read more thingy because it got long i hope it works

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