#He wants to see his friend

[nekohime19]

Mini Mac # 17 : Lil guy adventure

Mac go in search for Wukong!

Macaque was on a makeshift raft, twigs tied together by sturdy threads, strengthened by shadows. He left Flower Fruit Mountain two days ago after being embraced by the cubs and gifted flowers and fruits by the monkeys. Ma weaved flowers in his fur as a sign of good luck and Ba (another one of Wukong's stalwart generals, usually one to sleep in trees) gave him a piece of bamboo. He set sail on the brightest day, pushed by the wind. Macaque knew how to handle his raft, he reached Flower Fruit Mountain shores on one. He knew how to scare the fish, how to navigate through the tide, how to handle the weather. It was familiar, even after years of not touching a raft, it all came back naturally. As if the gestures were carved in his body. The flowers in his fur were still fresh, it brought him comfort when he curled at night, the smell lulled him.

Macaque was heading to the west, searching for the brotherhood in hope of getting answers. He was aware that, perhaps, he will not be welcomed with open arms. The last time he heard those so-called sworn brothers, they seemed particularly crossed at Wukong. Still he couldn't help but hope. He wouldn't ask for their support but only for information. He didn't care how long it would take. Even if he wasn't as immortal as Wukong, his life was still fated to be long, as long as the shadows, in fact. He would sail for hundreds of years and get to the bottom of this.

***

Macaque spent numerous years sailing, the monkey's flowers wilting after mere months. Even with the aid of the wind, his raft was slow, and needed to be strengthened every now and then. He also needed to restock his stack of fruits. He stopped on islands and villages, traveling in the shadows to escape giants. He knew how they were with oddities like himself, and he wasn't going to jeopardize his search because of them. Some of them did catch sight of him but Macaque was an artist when it came to escapery. He always left a lil surprise to the poachers foolish enough to try capturing him. Putting bee hives in their houses and letting their horses run free.

After twenty years of sailing, Macaque met his so-called arch-nemesis. He was sitting on his raft and eating fruits when it happened. A duck came down from the sky and landed beside his raft. Macaque eyed it up and down, surprised by its arrival, for ducks didn't migrate here. The duck turned towards him and eyed his fruits.

“No, no way, bud. Those are mines.” Growled Macaque as he brought his fruits closer. The duck stayed silent for a bit before jumping at Macaque, trying to steal the fruits.

Macaque was not above fistfighting a duck, he punched the bird and watched it squeak in offense with glee. After a few minutes of wrestling the duck gave up and flew away with a few indignant squeaks. The wind patted Macaque's head, like it was proud of his fight.

“I'm not letting a duck walk all over me!” Huffed Macaque as he ate his fruits.

The duck came back the day after, somehow determined to steal from Macaque.

It became a ritual after this, fistfighting the duck (lovingly dubbed Squeaky by Macaque) everytime he landed near the raft. At least, the black-furred monkey told himself it served as a good workout. After five days, Macaque gave up and glared at Squeaky, persuaded that a devil was hiding behind those bead-like eyes.

“Look here, you want the fruits? Then how about we make a deal?” Huffed the black-furred monkey with crossed arms. Squeaky narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “I'll feed you if you fly me where I want.”

Squeaky ruffled his feathers with his beak, swimming a bit around the raft, before stopping before it and presenting his back. Macaque cautiously stepped on the duck's back, the feathers were surprisingly soft, it felt like stepping on a cloud. Squeaky unfolded his wings and took flight, Macaque latched on his neck, chirping in surprise. When he opened his eyes he was met with the endless horizon stretching behind the sea, his eyes sparkled at the view.

***

This odd partnership with Squeaky lasted for a year, Macaque fed Squeaky and in exchange the duck brought him closer to the brotherhood. The duck left (probably to rejoin his family) after dropping Macaque at the foot of Camel Ridge, the city where the brotherhood decided to hole up. Macaque watched him fly away with a hint of longing, he had come to like Squeaky after spending months with him. Nonetheless, Macaque shook his head and entered the city, determined to get information on Wukong.

Macaque slipped inside of the city, running in the shadowed corners. The city was still very much in its construction phase, it was hardly worth a village. The black-furred monkey stopped before what looked like a building palace. He crawled under the space between the floor and the door. The inside of the palace was mostly empty, probably still being furnitured. Macaque walked in the shadowed corners until he caught sight of Azure Lion, Yellow-Tusk and Peng. They were all seated around a round table, discussing the plans of the city, and something about needing energy. The black-furred monkey observed them a little before climbing on the table, they all turned towards him with various levels of surprise.

“Macaque?” Mumbled Azure with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, sorry to invite myself?” Awkwardly chuckled Macaque. “I… I want to know what happened to Wukong.” He felt the mood darken at the sage's mention. Peng scoffed and crossed his arms while Yellow-Tusk averted his eyes.

“He betrayed us, that's what happened.” Sighed Azure Lion as he lowered his eyes, eyebrows furrowed.

“What do you mean betrayed?” Macaque couldn't believe his ears. If there was one thing Sun Wukong valued more than himself, it was his friends. He couldn't believe that Sun Wukong would willingly betray the brotherhood.

“He kneeled before the Jade Emperor.” Scoffed Peng.

Macaque wanted to say more, argue for the sage's sake, but he saw in their eyes that they weren't willing to listen.

“Where is he? What is happening to him?”Asked Macaque instead, only interested in where he could find Wukong.

“We do not know.” Sighed Yellow-Tusk.

“He was dragged by Heaven's soldiers, we don't know more than that.” Replied Azure.

Macaque stilled, worried by the lion's words. He feared what Heaven would do to Wukong. He wanted to ask more, to pry more, but he saw that he wasn't welcome and dived in his shadows, escaping Camel Ridge.

Macaque felt desperate, he couldn't go to Heaven… Maybe he could find a way? But who would be able to guide him upward? Did he even want to? Heaven was a dangerous place… but at the same time Macaque didn't want to stop looking for Wukong, he wanted to see him again.

The black-furred monkey spent the following days searching for spirits and lesser gods, trying to find a way to reach Heaven. It was complicated, no one wanted to accommodate him even if he tried to push for it. It was in the middle of his conversation with an umpteenth spirit that he heard a deafening sound. Something thundering, as if a higher god slammed his hand on the earth. Macaque erected his ears, curious about the sound

He felt every inch of his being burned when he heard a familiar cry.

Wukong's cry.

Ch1 / Previous / Next

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[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.

[ruubesz-draws]

Come with Kong to Monkeyland!

Kong just wants to show his New Empire in Hollow Earth

My brain constantly nagging me to draw this as Kong:

[equinoxette]

they should've hugged!!

[edlucavalden]

Oh my god.. this post was cooking i had to..

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[ciderjacks]

despite Laios low self esteem making him think that if he’d been eaten, Chilchuck and Marcille wouldn’t have helped Falin,

theres a small part of me that thinks the reason Chilchuck stayed with the party and went back in the dungeon in the first place was because he didn’t want to leave Laios alone. That Laios was moreso the reason he stayed.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Council of lovefools.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[chaos-bringer-13]

I've seen a lot of people writing Danny as a space ancient and Dan and Dani as ghosts with moon and sun cores, being sort of parts, versions of Danny and therefore weaker. Now, consider: Dan and Dani are both powerful ghosts with really cool cores and stuff but Danny is just some guy™

Dan, who came from an alternate timeline and is kind of from the future but also not, is Clockwork's apprentice and will eventually become an ancient of time. He probably only agreed to have some lessons with Clockwork to understand better what happened to him, but he enjoys his apprenticeship now.

Dani, with her love of travelling, loves seeing all the different places the world offers to her, and that includes space and different planets and maybe even parallel universes, and she accidentally ends up being an apprentice of the space ancient. For now she's probably a baby ancient of freedom or something like that, but she might become an ancient of space in the future.

We can also have something like Dan having a core of destruction or Dani being the Speed Force if you want it to be dcxdp, or any headcanon of yours about their cool powers.

And then there's Danny. And yeah, everyone knows that he's super powerful, but also he's just some guy.

It can go different routes. Does everyone know that Danny is just Danny? Or do they think that with siblings (well, technically a clone and an alternate version, but whatever) so powerful, he must be even stronger? Is Danny actually something terrifyingly eldritch and ancient and strong, almost a god, but he just doesn't know himself? Or is he just really some guy?

Now, because it's obvious that I have a dcxdp brainrot, have a regular "JL summons/meets a powerful ghost" but its Dan and Dani, and they keep mentioning their original/brother who won a fight against them at some point. The JL is very concerned about Dan and Dani's godlike powers, and they can't imagine what Danny is like. And then they meet him (in his human form), and it's just a young adult in casual clothes, very friendly and helpful, with no evident powers. Imagine the confusion. Imagine Dan and Dani, radiating power, in their eldritch ghost forms, admitting that fighting Danny for real is the dumbest thing to do and not even they would succeed... And then there's Danny is jeans and silly t-shirt, waving shyly.

[lotus-pear]

god i love skk sm i wish gay ppl were real :(

[zillychu]

Consider for a moment: A slow-burn identity reveal “no one knows” AU with an emphasis on ghosts being taken seriously as an actual, world-changing threat.

Ghosts are treated as an exceedingly dangerous, but unavoidable force of nature. They can come and go without warning, through naturally occurring spontaneous portals. They're territorial, driven only by obsession and hunger for the living. Particularly powerful ghosts are on par with natural disasters.

Life goes on because there's simply no other option. All major buildings have varying levels of ghost shields, some stronger than others. Just about everyone has some form of personal shield, weapon, or general deterrent. For the most part, humanity takes this apocalypse in stride, barely keeping it all together because there's just enough safety to keep them all sane.

Which is why the rumors of Phantom being able to fully mimic a human body incites panic in Amity.

Phantom was already a nightmare as it was–one of the most powerful and intelligent ghosts on record. His territorial fights with other ghosts for haunting (hunting) grounds in Amity have made global news several times already. Powerful ghosts could appear more human–but to think he was transforming down to a cellular level? Hiding among them? Bypassing ghost shields and alarms? Picking them off one by one?

The focus is mostly with Lancer's class, and how the school deals with this new threat on top of everything else. Everyone is a suspect, no one is safe, and Danny Fenton in particular gets slowly more and more exhausted, apathetic, and… unnerving.

The stress, the lack of sleep, the fighting, no one to turn to, not even his best friends or family–it takes a toll on him. Starving himself doesn't help, but he refuses to do more than take small bites from the ambient life energy and emotion of the living around him. Nothing that won't actually do lasting harm. He begins to slip up more and more, which Sam and Tucker begin to notice but haven't quite connected the dots yet.

But, well. What else can Danny do when Pariah Dark comes knocking on Amity’s doorstep, and his whole class is in the line of fire?

[erabu-san]

He didn't want to remember.

[egophiliac]

CROWLEY SSR THOUGHTS

there is zero basis for this, but I can't get this thought of my head

I don't know why I decided to draw it this way

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 170

Once again on my Ras & Danny being training rivals thanks to time travel bullshit. 

Look, Danny knows about the league of Assassins, but he almost dies of laughter when he realizes it’s the modern name of the league of Shadows. He’s an adult now, has been for a while, he’s allowed to find the situation he’s found himself in amusing. Hell, his sparring buddy who is somehow still alive is laughing too. 

And no one else knows what’s going on, okay? This random man walked into their secret base, completely ignored the many assassins trying to stop him, and called their illustrious leader a “Little Bitch Man” and they are now fighting?

The fighting is familiar, but why the fuck is Ras cackling and saying things like “Ayreh Feek” back. Practically saying “Fuck you,” while laughing and oh Pit, they’re Bantering this is terrifying, why has Ras not won yet, why has this man not died yet and- bodies aren’t supposed to bend like that what the fuck- 

Ras on the other hand, has One friend, who is immortal like him, actually remembers the shit he complains about, is also down for saving endangered animals, and actually knows how to spar! It’s not a proper spar unless someone loses at least a hand that has to be reattached! And honestly, people nowadays should know that the proper greeting to an old friend is to instantly try to kill the other. 

[bet-on-me-13]

Ellie isn't allowed to travel alone Anymore

So! Ellie was raised in a Lab by a Genuine Bonefied Supervillain. She was raised to be a Villain as well, so her Moral Conpass is a little skewed.

Sure she *mostly* knows what is right and wrong from Danny's quick lesson before her Adventure around the Country, but she still has trouble separating what is moral and what is not from time to time.

So it's really no surprise that the moment she left Amity Park she somehow ended up being branded a Villain.

Look, it's not her fault she didn't know not to attack the flying guy in Blue Spandex when he approached her! One of Danny's biggest warnings shen she left had been Stranger Danger! She did what any 12 year old girl would have done when approached by a strange Older Man!

Its also not her fault that her powers (being Magic based), managed to affect him! She didn't even use her full power! (She maybe should have kicked him in a different place tho...she hopes he wasn't planning on having kids...)

So she did what her instincts told her to do. She took any money he had on him and ran the hell away!

It wasn't until she was 2 cities over when she saw a newspaper titled, "Little Villain Girl Mugs Superman in Broad Daylight!", that she realized she may have screwed up...

After that, she really had no excuse.

She knew that she probably shouldn't have kept Mugging the Heroes who approached her, but she wasn't a Fenton for nothing! Her Family Motto had always been "Commit to the Bit", and she was gonna stick to it!

So when the Fast Red Guy tried to tie her up, she phased off all his clothes and took off with his money (not the mask, she knew enough not to take that off)

And when the Grumpy Bat Guy tried to corner her with some weird papers he pulled out of his Belt, she just distracted him while her clone picked his pockets and made off with the wheels of his Car. That one made her a pretty penny!

The flying Green Guy was fun, his attacks were just throwing Ghost Candy (pure willpower) at her. He did stop doing do after she nicked his fancy talking Ring however, but it was fun while it lasted

Then she came across a Orange Fish Guy, and he actually seemed nice enough. But she was committing to the Bit, so she took the fancy Trident he had and sold it at a nearby Pawn Shop for some extra cash. He would probably be able to find it, that's why she chose a nearby location.

All in All, her Adventure had been really fun! So she decided to visit Amity Park again to tell Danny all about it!

...

Aquaman walked into the meeting room of the Watchtower, a very frustrated look in his eye.

Barry spoke up first, "Oh! I know that look in your eye! She got to you too didn't she!"

Arthur just glared at Barry for a second before walking over to his Chair, sitting down with a thump. "She is certainly a tricky child."

"What did she take this time?" Clark asked.

"..mttrident..." Arthur grumbled out quickly.

"What was that?" Asked Barry with a twinkle in his eye. He heard it, but he wanted everybody else to know.

"She took my trident, Okay!" Arthur shouted out.

"I feel ya man." Responded Hal, "At least with me she threw it back at me when she realized it wasn't making 'candy' anymore. What did she do with yours?"

"She sold it at a Pawn Shop!" Arthus yelled in frustration, "She managed to steal one of the most Powerful Magical Weapons in the world, the Symbol of the entire Atalantean Royal Bloodline, and she sold it and a Pawn Shop!"

"...how much did she get for it?" Asked Hal.

At this, Aquaman just collapsed to the table and groaned.

...

Alternatively she could have just kept all those things, and gradually built up a collection of all the JLA's most treasured possessions.

She has Supermans Wallet, not very important to him but it was her first mugging

She has Batmans Utility Belt (trackers removed) along with his Tires

She took Flashes Costume Ring (his civilian clothes still stuck inside)

She took Green Lanterns ring as well, but unfortunately it managed to escape after a few days. It was feisty.

And her crowning Jewel is the Trident she took from Aquaman.

(She avoided WW, cause she likes her too much to steal anything from her)