#while not ideal

[gay-ellis-thats-all]

School Administrator: oh first day at a new school, huh? Ok, sweetie, can you spell your name for me please?

Oh, just a second… The school board is trying to save money by keeping these old computers running so they moved us over to Linux…

Alright, g’ahead, darlin’.

Student: R…M… Space… Dash…R…F…Space…Tilde. All lower case.

Administrator: Tilde? How do you spell that?

Student: oh that’s like the little squiggle.

Administrator: ohhhhhhhhh! I love learning all these interesting names! What’s your last name?

Student: Musk

Administrator: Ahhh, should’ve guessed! I think we’ve had a few of your siblings matriculate here over the years

Student: So… can I go to class now?

Administrator: Yup, just as soon as I log this registration document with Adrianna, our IT administrator…

Administrator: Oh… well, that’s odd… she said, “Her father named her, I take it? He would be the one to get even the most basic script-kiddy command wrong.”

Student: Yeah… I know… the closest he’s ever come to using Linux is when he watched one of the programmers at X, formerly Twitter, use the terminal.

Administrator: I’m sorry, dear… do you have a name you’d prefer we use?

Student: Oh, thanks… um… Miriam?

Administrator: that’s lovely, dear.

if I meet u at a party I will often hand you my phone and say something like "this is a list of names for girls. please read through and then add one." the list is special because you can only add to it in person; I won't add something that you tell me about over text. however, I think it's okay for me to share it here. without further ado, I present: girl names (names for girls)

[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.

[dappy-dappernette]

I keep on hearing people go all "The voice of the Smitten is such a creep. All he wants in the princess is someone to control and keep as a pretty object. He'd drop the princess if she wasn't the perfect petite maiden like in the damsel route." and I will not stand for the Smitten slander.

Like- He's been in love with her as a burning corpse ghost lady:

A terrifying ghost woman who wants to bring fear and chaos to the world:

And even a murderous blade monster woman who would kill you and enjoy every second of it:

Like, he ALWAYS loves the princess no matter what she looks like or how she acts, he loves her for being herself no matter what or who she is. That's the point of his character and I'm tired of people slandering my boy.

[valtsv]

i'm a disgusting little centrist when it comes to the was shrue's family real or fake question because to me that matters much less than the way it illustrates the experience of paranoid stress psychosis. like i never want a definitive answer because it just doesn't really matter. do you understand me. like. either way, they experienced that loss and heartbreak. they were confronted with an unflattering portrait of themself as a destructive absence in other people's lives, sacrificing human connection for sociopolitical status. they were exploited and had their mind fucked with and were made vulnerable to manipulation. answering that question makes no difference to the fact that what they experienced was real and horrifying to them. they were vulnerable and someone noticed and took advantage. there is no absolution nor satisfaction to be found in certainty, only further pain and regret. the end outcome is the same.

[rocker-socks]

People talking about how Telemachus is written too young and "his song is more fitted to a 13 year old than a 20 year old" is both really funny and also kinda depressing.

There’s actual reasons - in Ancient Greece 20 year old men, while certainly not considered children, also weren't thought of as adults but instead youths. Admiteddly this a more athens leaning take, but even in Sparta men weren't allowed to hold political positions until they turned 30.

In a more modern take, as a 20 year old this is exactly how my peers act and feel. The vast majority of people in their early twenties have no idea what the hell they're doing.

Obviously not so much a tumblr problem - aged demographic and all - but also both really funny and a little sad to see on tiktok. Yes 14 year old, even at 20 you will be yearning to be Great with no idea how to do so.

[orange-sora]

I'm fascinated by the ouroboros of fandom sexualisation. Fanon shizun is often portrayed as some elegant beauty, a sexy ethereal being whose every breath is slutty. Meanwhile, in reality he was a big weirdo with decent principles (like being against child abuse), an inherent social awkwardness and a strong sense of modesty. He wasn't sexy, just kind.

It's basically exactly what Shen Yuan did to HIS Luo Binghe. To him, Lbh was a peerless beauty who can (and will) charm every woman in vicinity, with his perfect body and honey sweet words, a typical power hungry sexy demon lord. Even though everything in his reality pointed to the contrary! Luo Binghe was hungry only for love and acceptance, he had the ability to charm others but was truly uninterested in any sort of conquering, only wanting to care and be cared for. Any power he wanted was to protect and to be an equal, not to lord it over others. And above all else, he had NO GAME. He wasn't sexy, just desperate (and sincere).

Truly one of my favourite things about Svsss is how accurately it captured the nature of fandom and fan interpretation. We are all Shen Yuans in some way. Unfortunately.

EDIT: FURTHER THOUGHTS AND CLARIFICATION HERE

[somnas-writes]

Hc that by Illyrian standards Azriel is considered unattractive.

Illyrians are a more practical group, they’re strong and have traditions they want to follow. They live in cold mountains in camps. Strength and endurance is a top quality, and while Azriel embodies this— He doesn’t look it.

Illyrians want someone whose body reflects their strength. Huge arms, wide wings, tall and bearing tokens of war (scars but not too many scars because that then signifies defeat). Azriel is trained for reconnaissance. His job is to be unnoticeable, being a huge hulking figure doesn’t make that easy. He’s tall and large yes, but he’s not that ideal Illyrian man. Hes just slimmer that average and plays sneaky. Not the big bold way that they believe is honorable. So by the cultures standards, he’s not attractive.

Cassian and Rhys both know this, that their sworn brother is considered “unattractive” by their peers. They never really think about it because that’s their brother, you don’t go around agreeing that your partner in crime is ugly. (Also because he could totally kick their asses and hey you don’t call the guy who is covered in conscious shadows ugly)

It becomes irrelevant as azriel ends up sticking to his job and doesn’t have to often interact with large groups of Illyrians (that gets to be Cassians job).

On the flip side, other groups of fae need that man CARNALLY. What makes him unideal in Illyrian standards makes him the perfect man in theirs. Strong beyond what they could achieve, skilled, quick witted and mysterious—he’s a 10/10.

Rhys learns about this after Azriel makes a rare appearance at a large event to let Rhys know about a new development in one of his missions, the crowd immediately hones in on this hunk of a man. Later, Rhys has to deflect multiple offers of marriage from court nobles.

[sandflakedraws]

I don't go here (and am still enjoying all the troll art immensely) but for Flickory maybeeee a soft morning? What would an ideal morning look like for them? C:

if we're talkin about the mornin' after the first time ....

that one ended up feeling pretty ideal for both of them.

[hikeyzz]

draining his balls making him cum over and over again just so he'll pass out and finally get a good night's sleep >>>>

[tzarrz]

i listen to fog lake too much

[fire-on-fuel]

the most important distinction between boba fett and jango fett is that jango fett grew up on a farm and then in a traveling mandalorian merc clan and boba fett grew up in a city sized lab and then juvie and then every gutter in the galaxy from here to nar shaddaa

[xmimikyuusx]

I do think about quite often (unfortunately) a post I saw by another trans guy a while ago complaining about artists who draw big, bold top surgery scars (specifically calling them "botched") and it's such a weird and awful thing to say to ppl. I had my surgery in March, I'm healed now, but my scars are very much visible. They're dark. They're stretched. They go far back under my arms and around my sides. They probably look that way because I'm fat. And I love them! I love how my body looks, I love my scars. I fought hard to get this far. Maybe it's not always safe for my scars to be visible, but I want to see them, they're proof of what I've gone through and they're apart of me. They've grown and will grow with me. They're not botched. They're perfect. They're everything I could have ever dreamed of and have improved my life more than anything else ever could.

[uncharted-constellations]

~You were just a kid too, huh~

Again, I refuse to make adult mm link edgy sorry.

[tapeworrmart]

Protective barrier ☣️

[thebatsandthebugs]

my 'hottest' dc take is that dickbabs and dickkori are both interesting, complex ships which can be written to have one be endgame/one break up without reducing/mischaracterising any of the characters involved. It literally comes down to personal preference on which you like better. Can we stop fighting (and give babs and kori solo runs please)

[choccy-milky]

older seb and clora on a job as curse-breakers💖 seb likes working with clora bc it means he can always spend time with her & keep her close, but it also still stresses him out bc of how dangerous it can be LOL. and i love worried + overprotective seb, so ofc i had to draw one of their close calls 🥺💖💖