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fumifooms · 27 days

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Dungeon lord Chilchuck

What would his wish as a dungeon lord be? What would he be like? Headcanons & speculation post for fun. But I’ll start with analytic lead up because that’s always fun for me, though feel free to skip and skim.

When it comes to what Chilchuck’s dungeon lord desires could/would be like we have mainly 3 hints: His nightmare, his succubus and what the winged lion says to him.

Why: — From what we see nightmares are based on the person’s worst fears and insecurities, both Laios’ and Marcille’s nightmare were closely tied to their dungeon lord wishes (Laios’ dream monster being summoned to crush the ghosts of relationships that represented the pressure to fit in and belong, Marcille seeking control over death and aging through magic to avoid loss), the fuel behind their desire/goal if you will. Fear and deep-seated desires are seemingly closely tied, something also supported by Thistle and Mithrun’s reigns as dungeon lords (Thistle proving his worth through fulfilling his given duty + protecting his loved ones, being listened to instead of having to listen, Mithrun escaping rigid two-faced elven society and living in a wonderland where he has no enemies and he’s loved, free from everyone he knew yet propped up by the person symbolizing his brother being chosen over him, the bastard child).

— I’ve talked about the significance I assign to the succubi often by now, but rundown: What we see of each character is all very telling if you care to listen, it shows not only someone’s "ideal form" but what they want from it. Izutsumi’s is familial, offering a hug and comfort, Marcille’s is romantic with a character she knows and loves, offering a kiss on a hand and a connection regardless of how distant it actually is, and Laios’ is platonic, arguable at first but then Laios’ fear of judgement is placated and he is offered the picture perfect friend group that accepts his interest (if you want my full look at Laios’ succubus go here). They take on the most alluring form, most ideal person of their victim, even uncovering deep subconscious desires, so precisely and effectively to the point it leaves victims physically frozen before the object of their desire. Succubi and the demon are themselves tied in lore and it’s easy to see how similar their core skill are. Succubi don’t give a good idea of what a character would wish for on their own but they certainly give hints on what they crave, regardless of how you want to read it.

— Last bit is self-explanatory. To placate Chilchuck and win his compliance over, the monster that reads your soul like an open book offers to give him something specific. But! It’s also important to remember that the lion isn’t offering to fulfill Chilchuck’s dream world wish here, it’s a second prize, because his goal with what he promised Laios is that they’d stay in this world, away from everyone and everything else. Chilchuck wants to get away but is kept back, and it’s here the lion placates him with "hey it’s okay! You can’t do that but I can still give you this! This is enough right? It’ll make everything easier on you".

What each bit says: — Long version in another post. Tldlr: His daughters and family are obviously important to him, and this reinforces that he takes on the role of protector a lot, he’s constantly worried for his party members’ lives and implicitly his family’s. Safety and stability, both economical and otherwise, are his core values and goals, and he berates both others and himself if someone fails on those fronts. Here, there’s the fear of not being enough, of not having been able to protect, and of course of loss.

— Chil’s succubi are obviously sexual, and not only that but agressively and straightforwardly so. It’s not like Marcille’s where there’s personality involved, all they do is give him sultry looks and pretty smiles before jumping on him. His succubi aren’t like Izutsumi’s, always the same exact person and appearance, so it’s not someone but an appealing general idea. The idea of a sexual being he can regard as simply a gorgeous piece of meat and a good time no strings attached. In my interpretation, especially with my reading of Laios’ succubus where even with deep-seated desires negative emotions can be too intense to effectively freeze a victim, I think this doesn’t contradict his character. Relationships have been painful to him in the past, in the succubus scene when his wife gets mentioned his immediate reaction is to yell "Don’t bring her up now!", like with his habit of drinking and as a tallman liking his senses feeling dulled, it’s about not having to feel emotions with how difficult they are to deal with sometimes and just feeling good, or at least not having to think, for a while. If a succubus showcases someone’s ideal connection with an ideal person, then Chilchuck’s is with a pretty person that doesn’t stir any negative memory or drama, someone low stakes and low maintenance that doesn’t require him to manage or talk out feelings because there’s none involved in the first place.

— Once more, wife and family are important! He does long for his family, not only his wife but his daughters, and vice versa. This suggests not only that he wants good relationships with them but that he wants them to be with him, a family life. Far from the cut communication they all more of less have during canon, and perhaps far from their life pre-canon when he worked away from home a significant amount of time. We’ve seen recreations of people by the winged lion before with doppelgangers and monsters (naga), and though he claims he can make satisfying imitations, what we’ve seen is that they base themselves on the best memories of that person, like with Marcille’s dad, or twist behavior to be more pleasant, like Mithrun’s lover (and possibly twist appearances depending on the person’s view of them, but that’s Mithrun analysis). The line does suggest Chilchuck would want his family members as they are in reality and not idealized versions, but the circumstances are chaotic and urgent enough in the scene (and again the lion isn’t fulfilling Chilchuck’s wish but trying to make him content for Laios’) that it could just be the winged lion saying what he needs to to convince him the fastest possible, and like we see with Laios that can crumble to give way to deeper or more complex desires.

On top of that we just have general info on Chil. How does Chilchuck deal w his issues? What does he like to do? He likes alcohol and ignoring his problems. We have to remember there is a split between what someone would consciously wish for and what their soul uncontrollably irrationally craves. As always with Dunmeshi, there’s a narrative of irrational deep-seated desires vs active wants, what you crave vs what you strive for, what you dream of vs what’s actually good for you, the animal vs the human inside you, heart vs mind. Chilchuck craving a harem of hot babes in his fantasies but wanting his family life & wife back again is not mutually exclusive. You may crave becoming a monster and tasting what humans are like a little but still want to save the world & your friends more.

Btw can we adress the irony of him terrified of being the last one alive, of being left by his daughters and wife, of having left and coming back home one day to see everything gone or rampaged, yet not caring about dying of liver failure himself, knowing every time that he enters a dungeon there’s a real risk he may not come out. Die somewhere I can’t see you. I prefer leaving you than being left behind. He’s selfish and shortsighted like that… Chilchuck is selfless in many ways of course, but perhaps also due to his own relationship with his parents, he often undermines the effects he has on others in his relationships, both the good and the bad (he talks himself down about being cowardly and greedy yes, but never hints at his bad health habits, alcoholism and starving himself, may have affected his loved ones, doesn’t question his wife falling into a bad mood the night before she left, and talks about the possibility of dying here and there very casually, though obviously he tries his best to stay alive when it doesn’t concern his health).

Chilchuck king of "Let me just avoid and ignore my problems surely they’ll go away, things might work out and if they don’t well tough luck I’ll survive and I probably deserve it anyways". If I don’t look at it it will dissapear <3 Why care when you can simply not think about it.

You might not understand Mister "my love will stay strong through months of work travel and also 4 years of separation" and Mister "well idk my siblings and me are kinda strangers and my dad is dead but that’s kinda whatever", but typically relationships need some form of maintenance and emotional availability…

The actual headcanons finally

I kinda have 2 routes in mind for dunlord Chil and both of them are centered on "I care too much, i wish things were easy", so first is a lot like his succubi, it’s full on indulging in his guilty pleasures like alcohol and bodies and it’s to keep him in a constant state of thrill and euphoria and distracted, unfeeling about stuff that really matters. "Nothing matters except that I’m enjoying the moment!" vibe. He gets to live a life worthy of Dionysus, with alcohol and women and debauchery and like— never having to think again, never having to feel anything but pleasure again, never have to feel guilty or shitty or angry or sad. He has a harem and gets everything on a silver platter.

Breaking news demon magic-induced rush of euphoria and power still not enough to cure this man of his self-hatred nor his capacity for thought!! But in his case a state of euphoria is what he seeks I think, to kinda mask or replace the Everything Else.

The other is what I think closer to what canon suggests, with what WL implied too with "I’ll make you a new wife and kids like the originals!! 😊", it’s a (spoilers) Wandavision type thing where it’s a slice of life where he’s never at work and always at home and the family eats lunches at the dinner table together and everything and everyone at any moment is just. Happy. No issues. It was all a dream, this is real and everything is fine and your family is perfect and happy. I like to think the timeline would be wonky, his daughters would fluctuate in age, but he’d want to be there for what he missed, would want them to still rely on him and look up to him like when they were young, would like to forget that they’re now independent adults and the distance that grew between Chilchuck and his siblings is happening between them as well. Chil would want doppelgangers of his family imo, at its core just a general wish for a peaceful happy family life with no drama, no need to compromise, a little paradise of unconditional love and no consequences. It’s for sure straightforward, but Chilchuck is a man with straightforward desires…

But see Chilchuck is a greedy man, and he wants it both ways without having to sacrifice anything or expanding any efforts himself. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. I think playing with these two opposite directions and mixing and matching is most fun. Him leading a life where he indulges in all his worst habits while still having everything he wants… Him getting to have BOTH his wife and any woman he can imagine up, his life like two sides of a coin he can flip at any moment where he’s partying then he’s at home enjoying the quiet and his toddler daughters playing with toys on the carpet. Christ when you remember it’s all an illusion that’s terrifying, the doppelgangers and succubi from the winged lion playing chilchuck ping pong.

A safe little haven both security-stability wise and emotionally. Gets to have both the relaxing and the thrilling in any dose he wants, mixed or separatedly. What I’d argue he had pre-canon too: Can live it up in taverns away from home, stays away from home for long periods of time, and can come back to home aka the symbol of relaxation and safety whenever he decides to. Something he can leave and come back to at will, an anchor he can trust in (until it’s taken from him and his wife leaves. Or in his worse nightmare people rush in and kill his daughters). The ideal of a house and family to a working man, perhaps…

I think it’s fun to think on wether or not these desires would be interesting at all to the winged lion… In canon he seeks out "rare/complex desires", common simple things like I imagine riches, sex, substances and pleasure would be are boring to him, he’s eaten those so many times already. So perhaps he wouldn’t last long as a dunlord, the WL would want to eat him fully quick, can’t keep him interested or waiting long for a meager meal, too much effort raising the cattle and too low quality meat. By making it more twisted or layered Chil’s desire would become more desirable to the demon, it’s part of what’s fun with the third option to me. But whatever. Has he ever eaten a guy with this much repression and self-sabotage... Like trying to get the meat out of a walnut, enrichment…

Other dunlord Chil takes I’ve seen that are fun and good:

@feelo-fick and @pluvio-floret have a dunlord Chilchuck AU project dubbed "tragedy AU" where Chilchuck is said to be "on vacation", in a weird delirious state, only half-there half of the time… From which he doesn’t want to wake up </3 Quoting Feelo, this is why the vacation thing is only a half-joke cause he is 1) letting all his responsibilities go 2) indulging in himself and 3) "spending time with his family" <- lie but you get what i mean. Additional comments that have me vigorously nodding: because changing is hard why cant things just be okay right now without the effort !!! Life is hard he’s so so tired he just wants to feel good… he just wants life to feel nice and easy for a sec while he can learn to breathe again and lose the stress and trauma he’s accumulated…….. spoiler alert yes !!! in fact a depressed person can suck themselves into their job and lock out the world who wouldve thought !!!

And then Cabinette I know posted about his dunlord take once but I don’t have the link, in which Chil has a lot of nosebleeds because of mana overload which is fun and interesting to think about imo~

In dunmeshi, where characters get underground pockets of the world as their playground disconnected from everything outside and the rest of the world, it’s important to remember to face reality even if it has conflict and people with different views and stances from you, it’s something Chilchuck and Marcille and everyone needed to learn, and the thing with a dungeon lord AU is that you imagine a timeline where he fails to <3

A timeline where his dungeon lord wish is to desire nothing bc hope and want has only ever hurt him would also go so hard. Very universal thing though I suppose.

… And this is why a Chilchuck-centric Coraline AU is really really interesting and fitting and topical— Ok that’ll go in a separate reblog/post at @Fumiku I need to let this end

#Dungeon meshi #chilchuck tims #Analysis #dungeon lord chilchuck #Spoilers #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #Wish we could put just parts of a post under a ‘click to read more’ box that scrolls open and closes neatly #Bc 3/4th of the post is just extra explanation for ppl who don’t See The Vision already but like that’s not what i wanted most of the post #to be really gdbdg #Headcanons #You could say the family also represents something he’s built up with how own hands. If he has self-worth issues and thinks he’s a screw-up #in the virtue/honor and likability department especially— his family destroyed/killed also represents the one biggest good thing #he’s done/created crumbling also. Like his wife leaving without a word while he trusted their relationship this can hugely impact #one’s sense of identity and self-worth and what you’re living life for. In his case it’s not too surprising he turned to simple #physical pleasures for comfort and enjoyment. Like with tasting good food having moments feeling good keeps you going #He always focuses on the bad relationships bring and never the good aghhhh #The reverse of Marcille who often idealizes. They both ignore problems in their relationships in opposite ways.#What do you mean why do i bring up marcille. Okay yes this’ll get a marchil Fumiku short brainstorm reblog as well #Chilchuck is so… curse of having feelings and not realizing the extent of them. Underestimating how much you care #It’s either ‘i’m fine who cares’ or falling into the pits of despair and blaming himself n spilling his whole bag no inbetween #Dunmeshi succubus #Fumi rambles #boy that’s what this boils down to i suppose #Family angst “Hey I came back home from work and i’m tired so don’t talk to me about problems or anything k? I’m here to relax smh damn”#< unwilling to admit he has issues he should be working on or that some things are affecting others negatively #Chil you are so enneagram 6w7 <3

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ashintheairlikesnow · 2 months

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Call Mom

CW: PTSD/flashbacks, BBU in general, haunted, ghosts, reference to a murder, severe chronic panic

Jameson's Masterlist (scroll down)

Aw, crap. Hey, Johnny, do you remember where I put that girl's number? Like, Katie, or Caitlyn, or... do you remember? Hey! Johnny! Put down the fucking xbox controller for two fucking minutes and give me a hand, won't you?

Fingers snap right in front of his face.

Johnny!

Jameson jerks in a breath that sounds like a whine, sitting straight up. The fan blows cool air over his sweat-soaked skin and he shivers, cold inside and out. The air in his room is freezing, suddenly. Outside it's so dark you can't even see the trees - the power outage must still be going, there aren't any streetlights. Thanks to the clouds, no stars or moon, either.

Just darkness.

Wait, if the electricity's out...

He looks up. The ceiling fan is perfectly still above his head, even while ice-cold air keeps goosebumps rising on his arms, the hair standing up at the back of his neck.

See, was that so hard? It'll take like five minutes if we work together, I swear.

"Nat?" He mumbles. "S'at... you?"

Checked there already, actually. Checked the fridge, too, so where the hell did I put it?

He's the only person in this room.

Jameson goes from still half-asleep to fully, painfully awake and aware in a single breath.

The voice comes as clear as if it was right next to him, a voice as familiar as his own - but he has no idea whose it is. There's no one here but him - even Trash Cat isn't here any longer, probably hunting a tiny piece of plastic downstairs that he'll end up stepping on in the morning. So far she hasn't eaten any of them. He doesn't even know where she's finding them.

Johnny, come on. Let's, like, retrace our steps.

His head starts to ache more with every single word, the pain working like tendrils behind his eyes, a pressure trying to crush his skull from the inside. Something flashes, bright and almost like a spectrum of rainbow colors, in the corner of his right eye, but it won't resolve when he turns his head.

I got home from work, I told you we had a hot customer who gave me her number, and then... then what?

Jameson stares into darkness so complete it feels like it has weight. Like it's sitting on the bed next to him, like the mattress dips underneath it. A body made of memory, slowly pulling together the pieces of what's been hidden. Clawing them out but leaving deep weals across the inside of his mind, like a corpse's fingers digging into loose dirt to climb out of his grave.

"Caitlyn," He whispers, as the thought crystallizes. A memory, pure and perfect. Some sliver of whatever they broke the person he was into. Some small piece of the man who signed up. "Her name was Caitlyn, not Katie. She... wrote it on the fucking paper."

Right! Okay, so, clearly I told you her name, and then what?

Jameson turns his head, and there he is.

Hank.

His breath catches in his throat.

Hank is younger than he is, even though he was older then. The older brother, trapped in time, while Jameson - Jonathan - keeps aging. The rakish smile is still there and, Christ, Jameson had forgotten that he'd done that stupid thing to his hair - you forgot everything about him, you begged them to take him away from you so that it wouldn't hurt anymore. He's still got that one crooked tooth he'd refused to get braces to fix. That crooked tooth had been in his dental records. It was how they identified his body.

The fucking crooked tooth, the silver-colored fillings, then the DNA tests...

"No," He whispers, going for a vicious hiss, but what comes out is far too close to a whimper. "No. This is-... this is a flashback. This isn't real, this isn't-"

Maybe I left it in yesterday's pants?

"This isn't real, fuck off." Jameson shoves himself off the bed, forgetting his stupid fucking legs don't work. His knees buckle as soon as they have to take his weight.

He lands wrong on one arm and the pain spikes up through his shoulder, making him cry out in the hoarse, rasping voice that his life has left him with. "Fuck!"

He rolls onto his side, but he can't stop himself.

He looks up again. He doesn't want to remember Hank but he's desperate for one more look at his face. Just the one more time.

Just once more.

Hank sighs, raking a hand back through his hair, leaving it mussed-up and sticking out, looking ridiculous. He did that all the time. Bit his nails, too, and tried everything to stop but he never did. He wore those jeans with the ripped knee all the time, their mother had hated it. Hank, wearing the t-shirt for the band they'd gotten concert tickets for but never got the chance to see. Hank, dead for years, smiles to one side at a brother who isn't there.

The brother who erased him.

"Hank," He whispers. "Hank, you gotta-... you gotta go. You're hurting me-"

Damn. Man, it wasn't in my jeans either. Well, I'll find it sooner or later, I guess. Hank shrugs. His eyes are in shadow, not quite defined. Jameson wonders if it's because he's forgotten what color his brother's eyes were, forgotten it deeply enough that even this can't pull it back.

It'll be okay, Johnny. It really will. Hank looks right at him. Jameson's breath catches in his throat. The room is so cold the air burns as he breathes. It never gets this cold in California. It can't be this cold in California. I mean it. Don't cry yourself to sleep over this.

"I cried myself to sleep... all the time, but I don't now. I'm not-... that guy." He can barely speak. He sees his breath puff out when his lips move, and Jameson slumps back. His voice cracks, it creaks like old floors. He didn't stop crying for weeks. He didn't leave his bed. He did any drug he could find trying to not think about Hank, until he realized there was only one way to make sure he never had to think about what he'd done, by letting Hank walk home alone that one night, again. He didn't want to think about that pain anymore.

They had promised him he wouldn't ever have to hurt like this again.

They lied about that, too.

Jameson makes a sound he refuses to admit is a choked-off sob. "I'm not him, Hank. I'm not Johnny... not anymore."

Hank stands, and it's impossible. He's not here. But he holds out his hand anyway, and Jameson takes it without thinking. Hank's grip is so cold it burns, but Jameson lets his dead brother pull him to his feet anyway.

He smells like earth and ice.

"I'm not him," He whispers.

Right, like that argument ever works. Hank just grins, shaking his head. The man Jameson was - the one he had begged to leave behind - is the reason Hank will look like this in his memories forever. He's the reason there isn't another Hank, only this one, locked in the memories he wanted to boil and burn out of his own head. They're still there, though. They break through.

They never stop breaking through.

He would crawl back into Robert's cage himself if it only meant he didn't have to remember that it's his fault Hank is dead.

Tears run hot down his cheeks - the only thing in him that isn't frozen is his grief, wildfire in his chest leaving nothing but ash behind. Forests after wildfires are ghosts, Hank said once, when they were both high and everything sounded fucking important.

Jameson had called him an idiot - he remembers that now. But... he also thinks Hank was right. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can, focusing. He isn't here. Hank cannot be here. "I don't remember... remember you-... I don't want to remember you! It was my choice to forget!"

Hank claps him on the shoulder. His smile goes briefly gentle and soft. Jameson can see it with his eyes closed. Whatever you say, man. Just promise me you'll call Mom sometime soon, okay?

The pain is too much. If he can't pass out soon, he might die just from having to experience it, unending, never stopping, rising higher and higher. "Mom...?"

Yeah, dumbass. Mom. Our mother? Who gave birth to us and never lets us fucking forget it? I keep trying to talk to her, but I guess my signal's bad. Hank laughs, and Jameson's whole body breaks with the sound of that familiar laughter. The way Hank could throw his head back without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, how he'd hear that laugh across a crowded room and know it was his brother's, know right where he was.

Until he didn't.

Until nobody did.

Until the cops found what was left.

Until-

Jameson jolts again, and finds himself still lying on the floor next to his bed. He's burning up, boiling hot, pouring sweat until his sleep shirt sticks to his back and his arms feel slick with it, his hair sticking to skin. A droplet trickles down the back of his neck like a fingertip, barely touching. He rips his shirt off, then his pants, throwing them as far away from himself as he can, until he's naked on the floor but it isn't enough.

He's still sweating, still breathing in harsh gasps, fighting around the strength of his racing heart to get enough air to fill his lungs. He looks frantically around, but no one's here.

The ceiling fan circles lazily overhead.

He takes in a breath, his heart pounding. It feels like it's going to grow wings and fly away, up his throat and out of his mouth. He's still crying, he realizes only now. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can and fights tears back through sheer willpower and rage, curling his hands into fists. Just like they used to be, his fingers know - muscle memory of mittens that had kept him powerless, once. Now, he does it on purpose, and he forces them to curl through the pain.

Forces down the dream.

Wills himself to forget he ever had it.

"Four... f-four things you can see," he whispers to himself, slumping back down. His voice keeps trembling, catching, and it's everything he has to open his eyes again around the pounding headache in his skull and look. "The-... moon. Out the... window. The, my dresser... for my clothes... M-My, uh, the picture Nat p-printed of me and Allyn... fuck, the... the doorknob."

Every time he thinks he knows how much of his body can hurt at once, some nerves he didn't know existed decide to join the party. He has to breathe in and out, slow and controlled, trying to will his body to cooperate. He won't walk tomorrow, he can tell already. It'll be a day to spend in bed, or using his wheelchair. It might be a week until his body lets him walk again.

He fights back a new well of rage and despair at how well he knows the next way his body will fail him. He can't think about that right now, or the pain and the panic will spiral out of control. He might hurt someone. He can't hurt anyone, not ever again.

He won't.

"Three... things I can touch," He murmurs. "My, my... my shirt, fuck, gross, sweaty... my... my hair... the floor, feels... cold, feels good... the corner of my bed..."

It helps. He makes himself focus on this, on real things, not the nightmare of his brother.

He won't remember his brother.

He won't.

"Two things I can hear. Uh, the, there's... crickets or something outside, and-... and I can hear-"

Hank's voice whispers right next to his ear.

Call Mom.

His breath hitches.

"Not real," he whispers. "One... one thing I can taste..."

All he tastes is blood, and for one horrified half a second he's sure it's Hank's blood, until he realizes he bit his tongue in his sleep.

The blood is his own.

Call Mom.

#whump #ghost story #haunted #chronic pain whump #jameson bb #I just love a good ghost story now and again #referenced murder #escaped whumpee #recovering whumpee #referenced drug use #bbu #wru #box boy universe #whump writing #box boy #ptsd whump #nightmares tw #nightmare whump #flashbacks whump

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