#THISTLE SPEAKS.

[pollyanna-nana]

Did anyone else notice that seemingly one of the first things they did after bringing Thistle into the kingdom was cut his hair short?

And given what Marcille says about how important hair is to magic…. That’s probably not a coincidence.

[sunsetdeathcity]

something ive noticed is that you dont pick a favorite dungeon lord. one of them picks you and youre just stuck forever and will constantly have them on your mind and itll make you so unbelievably sad

[902186]

those with especially strong desires

[roomba-mangga]

thoughts on thistle and yaad's dynamic that i vomited in the tags of another post but will now try to articulate here: they're not actually family, or at least they shouldn't be. not in a conventional sense anyway. framing them as uncle and nephew (even in a non-literal, silly fantasy world way) rides more on technicality than anything concrete.

what i mean by this is yaad calls thistle by name and says he and delgal were raised "like" brothers. he talks about thistle like he's an outsider imposing himself into the melinis' space, and it's clear that thistle was never legitimized as a member of the family. for thistle's part, though we don't know how he would treat yaad pre-demon brainrot, it's safe to assume based on the way he punishes him—turning him into a doll—and how little is shown in the way of any sort of relationship between them that thistle only cares* about yaad as an extension of delgal (otherwise i'd expect something like kabru and milsiril, because it's not like another complicated interspecies family dynamic would be out of place, yet there's next to nothing on them even in bonus content, just their scant interactions in the main story).

in essence, they're strangers to one another. thistle's desperation to preserve the illusion of a family, a model where he doesn't even fit, was the snare they were caught in for the past thousand years of stasis. yaad-as-nephew is a prop to uphold that illusion, and thistle is playing a role he's unfit to play. in the context of post-canon interactions, attempting to reconstruct that facade would only be a reenactment of trauma for them both (in a deeply compelling way i'd love to watch unfold, tbh), as that "uncle and nephew" framing places thistle in an implicit position of power over someone he's already traumatized through misuse of authority in the past, a role which also perpetuates his adultification and yaad's infantilization in turn. it'd mostly be an obstacle to any real connection.

best to burn the melini family bridge, i think, and if there's still anything salvageable left in the rubble, let something different supplant it.

[guideaus]

i think ch. 76 of dunmeshi is so good bc whether you view it in a labru way or not, we've got these excellent pages of kabru repeatedly reaching out towards laios

there are so many panels of kabru getting increasingly desperate to keep laios there, not because he's evil and wants to kill laios or whatever, but because so much of dunmeshi was kabru failing to keep his attention, despite doing everything that should have worked (little did he know he just had to tag along with shuro). we see kabru fumble through words that won't convince him and kabru struggles with what he should and shouldnt reveal about himself, and finally gives up that act and blurts out his full, true honest feelings, and stuns himself

he SMACKS his hand back over his mouth like, "AHEM, excuse me, no of course i didnt feel something as silly and illogical as that-" but then laios starts to outright laugh about his very serious actions about him, and he gets snaps again

laios' dismissal once again causes kabru to open up, and stay honest this time

kabru really spends a lot of his time getting his ass beat, or in bad situations in general due to his self sacrificial goal in trying to save the people on the island, but i think its good he finally outright says what he wants, too, even if laios is essential for his plan, but he does want to be friends with him, too.

i think this final scene where he takes a turn despairing also shows that his request to laios was truly what he wanted. he finally had a genuine moment of asking something of another person, instead of doing his duty to save this island and prevent a disaster, and he thinks he fucked up, but he really did have a selfish moment (and honestly his success in getting thru to laios helped undo the damaga mithrun did to marcille, which lead to laios forming his plan later).

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

This is obviously gonna be more for manga readers but anime viewers can also answer based on characters they’re familiar with so far, please be a little vague in the notes when mentioning any later manga spoilers.

[emilnikos]

some say he was broken some say he died of fright but everybody knew it was the zero light

[apollos-boyfriend]

fun fact i forgot to download artfight refs before my flight so i instead spent most of it hastily editing random izutsumi panels i had laying around into crumb

[lokh]

in my mind namari and shuro are the same level of involved with the main party and are at the same level of like. plot importance..... but namari is more often included in fan merch with the main cast and shuro gets left out =(

[orangetubor]

We met a dragon!

We will defeat the dark lord with the power of friendship!

Oh shit it's the dark lord!

Wait who tf are you

OH NO BRO

[pollyanna-nana]

So. It’s no secret that the dunmeshi manga gradually changed art style as it went on (thereby twinkifying a few characters…) but I like to think that, in Thistle’s case specifically, it was also a change in perception by the party. I mean…

Early in the story, when all they knew about him was that he was the creepy, all-powerful mad sorcerer? Probably were much more intimidated by him. Same with the reader. BUT….

By the end? Oh, he’s just a little jester twink who writes poetry and can be picked up and slung around like a bag of potatoes. No way they could take him seriously anymore. Literally this meme but in reverse

Little guyification…

[sunsetdeathcity]

//DUNGEON MESHI SPOILERS, chapter 71

this scene!! it makes me very surprised that i havent seen it talked about yet, backpack thistle is so fun but what about laios sharing facts to thistle???

i think the fact that thistles way of thinking and decision making is similar to the one of a child is such an important part of his character and this scene just shows that off so well, he really just wanted to be able to be with everyone and have all of them be happy and healthy so he tried his very best to do exactly that,

deciding to just seal everyone up is, like i said, a solution that shows off his childishness, if you dont leave the dungeon you wont be harmed, so why not just close the exit?

in this scene it still shows that, he still just thinks that way and is interested in what laios is sharing because, well, interesting facts, but also its useful information to better the dungeon

i really love how laios chose to reason with thistle and explain how his actions are causing pain to the ones hes trying to protect and this isnt exactly resulting in what he hoped for but instead just making everyone miserable and thistle takes the time to understand and think of another solution

buuut,, well, doesnt go as planned, but again this just even further shows that thistle just very much has the mindset similar to one of a childs, taking the most direct and somewhat rash approach for a solution,

this is all over the place but i really just wanted to share this scene since it stood out a lot to me and is so far my favorite; ive seen a lot of people dislike him for his actions but really i just think that with his childishness (or rather age? he would be older than marcille but to me very much acts like a teenager at the oldest,,) combined with his desire and the whole situation,, i really just,, aahhhhh, i really like thistles character

[tatangadragon]

ah yes, my favourite pokemon: the thistle

[greenslime69]

The only good thing to come out of my for you page

(Art by @sarakipin)

[roomba-mangga]

top image is the version i read first and while it did wring my heart like a wet rag the translation in my physical copy went the extra mile and beat me to death with a club in an alleyway

(bonus tears: the fact that they're parallel to thistle and delgal and this is what thistle might have said to him if they got to talk)

[dailythistle]

Thinking of making some pride-themed edits and posts for June for this blog, how would folks feel about that?