#[ ;i chose you ]

[tanjir0se]

Disclaimer these are just a small sampling of some possible writer traits I’ve noticed either in myself or in fics I read. Also consider a rb for sample size !

[ambrosiagourmet]

I want to talk about why I think this is the one of the most important Falin panels:

So, Falin is really nice, right? It's one of the first things we really learn about her. She's kind even to the monsters of the dungeon - choosing to ward the party rather than fight spirits and cause them needless harm.

In the above early flashback in chapter 11, we see Marcille fawning over Falin's kindness, calling her an angel. Namari calls her soft-hearted. We see Falin choose not to fight even when a zombie attacks - instead she resolves the confrontation with a hug. After the flashback, the first thing Senshi says is that Falin "sounds like quite the person," which Marcille strongly affirms.

At this point in the story, all we have seen of Falin are these impressions; she is a healer, an angel, a caretaker with an infinite well of kindness towards everyone she meets - both friend and foe.

And honestly, that remains most of what we have to go by to understand her. The only times we get to see Falin on the page, alive and just herself, are in the opening and closing pages of the story and in the brief period of time after she is resurrected.

Nonetheless, we do have some more details to work with. For one, there is the scene that The Panel is from - a short memory in chapter 75, when Marcille flashes back to while she's dying. In that scene, Falin prepares to teleport them all out, and says that she's sorry "if there is a person at [their] destination." And that's when we get The Panel.

If you teleport someone or something into another person, the person teleported into is likely to be, at minimum, severely injured. They could die.

We can see a lovely little horrifying example of exactly why in one of the Daydream Hour doodles:

So, hmm. That's not... that's not SUPER nice. Certainly not displaying the same "kindness to all, friend and foe included" we saw represented earlier. On a basic level, this adds some nuance to Falin's kindness. We see it break a little, when pushed to the limit. We see her chose to protect the people she loves above all else.

Which makes sense! As Laios says when the Winged Lion accuses him of similarly being motivated more by his friends' safety than everyone else in the dungeon, "...most people, aside from virtuous do-gooders, would feel the same way."

So, we can take The Panel as simply showing a moment of weakness for Falin. A time when she was pushed to her limits, and that "most people" selfish side of her shone through.

However... I think there's a little more going on with Falin than just her being an angel 99% of the time, except just that once. I love The Panel because I think it helps us understand that Falin isn't just motivated by kindness - she also has a desire to avoid seeing people in pain.

Isn't that the same thing?

No, no it very much is not.

Let's look at a short comic from the Falin section of the Adventurer's Bible, because I think it illustrates this point perfectly. The group is complaining about how much Marcille's healing hurts, and comparing it to Falin's, which "doesn't hurt a bit." Marcille retorts with the following:

Now, the punchline of this comic is that, despite Marcille's sentimental assertion that she's "thinking of [them]" by letting her healing magic hurt, they all still prefer to be healed by Falin.

But hey, this wouldn't be the first time that Dungeon Meshi hides a very real character beat or insight in a gag, so let's think about this somewhat seriously.

If Marcille is right (and she knows a fair bit about magic, so we can assume that she has at least somewhat of a point), then what Falin is doing isn't kind. I suppose if someone specifically requested to not feel the pain, it could be kind, but that's not really what happened here. She is the one who felt badly about the others being in pain, and she is the one who decided, without telling them or giving them a choice in the matter, to take away that pain.

Both Marcille and Falin are healing the party, but Marcille is doing it in a way that accomplishes the task in the most straight forward way, without any additional interference. Falin is going out of her way to perform the healing in a way she is more comfortable with. A way that avoids pain.

Going back the The Panel, I don't think its a coincidence that the only time we see Falin (well, non-chimera Falin) willing to do something that could hurt someone is when any potential pain will be far away from her. If she got someone hurt or killed by teleporting the party to the surface? Not only would it be far out of her sight, but she'd be dead before she had to deal with any consequences of that action.

Falin is not a confrontational person. She doesn't push when Marcille won't tell her the truth about the resurrection, and she comforts Laios about her own death - both of those things happening in the only full chapter she is alive and conscious in the whole story.

We also know that she considered accepting Shuro's proposal, despite not having any special feelings towards him, and that Falin never explained to Marcille that she wanted them to share a meal together. When she brought Marcille various foods at the academy, she just accepted Marcille's confused rejection and gave up.

And lastly, we know that she is still in contact with her parents, despite the neglect and abuse she suffered at their hands. Although the way someone chooses to handle contact with abusive or bad family is a complicated topic, which I don't want to overly simplify, I do I think this fact gets at the heart of how she handles conflict.

So many people that Falin loves have hurt her. There are understandable hurts, like Laios leaving the village, or Marcille not understanding the food. And there are bigger, far less justifiable hurts - like her parents neglecting her throughout her childhood, and sending her away to be alone at the magic academy.

It doesn't seem like Falin has ever confronted any of it directly.

And the unhealthy aspects of this kind of avoidance of pain and confrontation is one of the things that the story of Dungeon Meshi is all about. We see Laios grapple with it before he goes to kill Falin, and we see Marcille acknowledge it at the end of the story, when she tells Laios that she has come to terms with Falin's death:

Eating is a part of life. Consuming other living things is a part of life. It isn't really possible to avoid that pain - you can only hide from the truth of it. You have to be selfish everyday. You have to eat - to choose to live. To choose to take up space.

And this is something Falin embraces, too. She comes back to life, after all.

We see her choose to come back to life.

And how does she make that choice? She eats. She consumes, and then she is asked a question by the manifestation of hunger itself:

Do you want to eat more?

There is a double meaning in the Winged Lion's final words on the next page.

When I first read this, I took it as him saying: life is cruel. You will suffer. You will feel more pain.

But perhaps, especially for Falin, this also means: you are choosing a path where you must cause pain. Where you must consume. Where you must take, and must be selfish. Because eating is the special privilege of the living, and it is their burden, too. In order to stay alive, she will need to keep eating.

And she chooses that. Chooses to be selfish. It's why her resurrection scene is so important, and it's why The Panel is so important. Because Falin coming back isn't the ultimate reward for all of the party's hard work.

It's her choice. Just like it was her choice that started everything in the first place. But this time, she doesn't choose to accept causing pain for the sake of Marcille and Laios. She does it for her own sake.

[hollis-art]

they can be best friends. they can be lovers. whatever they are, i am rooting for them

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

How much longer 'til your luck runs out?

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[turontot]

READ FROM LEFT TO RIGHT!

baby choosing ceremony/erabitori!

just watched ultraman rising a few hours ago and i cannot get it out of my head. definitely recommend watching it! it has hatsune miku!!!

(PLEASE DM ME FIRST FOR PERMISSION IF YOU PLAN ON REPOSTING!)

[lotus-pear]

horrendously late entry for @luneariann’s dtiys!! congrats on one million ely i’m so proud of you <3

[theerurishipper]

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Part 1 <- Part 2 -> Part 3

Masterpost

[zan0tix]

Iconography

[kokokoula]

here's a thought:

tsukishima kei is mean. he complains that you talk too much, laughs when you flunk your tests, and insists that you're clingy. others wonder why you're even with him.

but they don't know that when he tsks at your rambling, he shifts one side of his headphones away to hear your voice. they don't know that even though he teases you for your low test scores, he would stay up late at night just to tutor you till you'd get it right. they don't know that after rolling his eyes at your affection, he places a chaste kiss on your forehead and hides his red face in your hair.

so when they say you deserve better, you laugh at their cluelessness and state with a smile, "he's more than everything i could ever want." and he falls in love with you all over again.

[keferon]

THIS FUCKING MOMENT

[making-you-in-spore]

i made the boston dynamics spot robot but only with vanilla parts in spore[2008]

[skybson]

My Top 25 Costumes from Star Trek : The Original Series

10. When Spock Wears a Beanie

[outsockk]

stupidest concept ever i love it

[sweetm0uringlamb]

1 day until november 5th

[remxedmoon]

y’know what? fuck you. *UNGRAYSCALES YOUR ISATS*

no wait come back there’s greyscale versions under the cut :(

[charcoaldustonmyfingers]

Finding Draxum

A little comic of Mikey finding Draxum in the street after he got drained by the Shredder suit. The original idea for this storyline was that Draxum would align himself with the Hamatos for a time while The Shredder took over the city, until his ego and obsession with prophesy led him to betray them once more. This time he would get no third chance, and Mikey would be the one to draw the line and tell him so before making him leave the city for good.

I love TMNT for its found family! But having had to cut off irl blood relatives before despite how many chances they were given, I kind of like Draxum as a villain despite him being the creator of the turtles. But that’s just me!

This doesn’t lead to his nice canonical show self in my mind , though it can totally still be read that way :)