#evening radio

[ontheeveningradio]

Sitting down at the table, you hear the click of a radio. Strange, you could have swore the battery died a long time ago…

“Welcome one, welcome all, back to the Evening Radio! This is your host, Eden. Unfortunately, our co-host is a bit busy at the moment. We hope to introduce you soon!”

Eden’s words are peppy and excited, but the lack of music can’t help but give an eerie vibe. The hum-buzz of a low quality microphone rings in your ears, giving you a splitting headache almost immediately.

__

Welcome to OTER (On The Evening Radio), a story where all your deepest desires may come true, at a price. The world is united, but split at the core. There’s plenty of people here who could use your help, those from the skies and those from the darkest depths! Your guide will do her best to keep you updated, but it will be your choice whether to turn a deaf ear and watch the world be ravaged.

Just remember! Tune in anywhere to listen, and we’ll listen to you.

__ On The Evening Radio is based off of Will Wood and his songs! (They're awesome, go listen to them) - Ideas

[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.

[thatdykepunkslut]

Taylors wift is just elon musk for horse girls and gays who are afraid of faggots

[prettypinkrioting]

alastor's little breakdown showed me something tbh. i want him to get attached. i want him to fight for the others. i want him to be so utterly fucked up and hate the fact he's grown soft because what a fantastic plot point would that be. a show about redemption shows a character who doesn't want to be redeemed but is slowly learning love by the force of a little band of pure of hearts and dumb of asses. i want him to get attached and freak out in his silly little studio because his ass likes these idiots and he can't fucking STAND the concept. fucking idiot you've just been found-familiy'd by force. asshole.

[rice-enjoyer]

[pinksartdump]

I am obsessed with VOXXXYYYYY umm also I tried to animate eheheh the voice actor they picked for him is *CHEFS KISS*

[sincerelystesichorus]

hazbin meme dump for ur pleasure <3

i actually watched hazbin before helluva,, but you probably wouldn't know it with how helluva managed to rot my mind.

[az-roser]

Your favorite gremlin has come to deliver more angst !!! (feat. Daddy Issues x2, Chaggie and Radioapple if you squint)

Sidenote: this hurts even more if you also subscribe to the headcanon that Alastor had an absolute SHIT father growing up, like I do LOL

[celestial-artisan]

Vox: I-if I say I love you, will you say it back? Alastor: No problem, pal. Vox: I love you..! Alastor: It back! Vox: Alastor:

Velvette: Why is Vox crying face-down on the floor?

[the-final-high-noon-rings]

in the spaced ship straight up "driving it". and by "it." haha well. let's justr say. my rotten world into the sun

[falling-star-cygnus]

did anybody else notice that in almost every scene that Alastor is in or leading in, eyes seem to follow him? -> and not just in the "it's the radio demon, oh my gosh!" sense

i mean the design literally follows him. this isn’t even half of the eyes that i found in his first half scene

they also move to stay on him, they're on his radio tower items:

and they’re on Carmilla’s meeting furniture for some reason?? -> Alastor get shifty eyed when Zestiel questions where he's been; almost as if someone is going to jump out at him if he says too much

during his deal with Charlie he specifically covers the eye in her window first and stands in a corner where the eyes engraved on her pillars are less present

Is Alastor being watched by someone? Or- considering the eye also located on his microphone- is someone monitoring how he uses his borrowed powers, monitoring how much he shares with Charlie?

If so, who is it? clearly not Lucifer, and it can't be Vox because the designs aren't electronic -> Heaven clearly uses the organic eyes growing in the buildings and wreckage to watch the sinners

but why do the carvings seem to follow Alastor?

[ontheeveningradio]

Happy lesbian day! Meet Lucille (She has five L's in her full name!), one of our lesbian characters! The OTER mods say Lesbian rights!!!! - Ideas

[pocchi-poket]

You know, I feel like we're not talking enough about the fact that Alastor has in his room a full reproduction (?) of a swamp-forest that's highly likely very similar to the one where he was killed. Talk about being morbid.

Edit: someone pointed out in the comments that the swamp-forest is called bayou. It's a kind of ecosystem in Louisiana.

[colliholly]

putting brave little toaster fanart on your dash in the year of our lord 2024. its mostly radio

[lunacias]

She's feeling a swell of an emotion at confessing all of this. She works to get it under control. /// Although he can't understand her, HAYWARD, too, is choking up a little at the sound of PAIGE's voice.

[allastoredeer]

Ya'll want to know the funniest shit?

I'm researching the era when Alastor was alive right now to get a better idea of both his character, the life he lived before Hell, and to hash out a backstory for him.

And so, apparently, Alastor lived through the Prohibition (which was basically the United States government illegalizing the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol because they thought it was the cause of a lot of domestic violence and child abandonment).

Alastor canonically died in 1933.

Do you know how long the Prohibition lasted?

From 1920-1933.

ALASTOR LITERALLY DIED THE SAME YEAR ALCOHOL BECAME LEGAL AGAIN. CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW BITTER HE MUST'VE BEEN?

The Prohibition officially ended on December 5, 1933, and now my headcanon is that Alastor died December 6, 1933. Literally the day after he could legally drink all the booze he wanted.

I am learning a LOT about New Orleans and the era Alastor lived through (including the gay community in the city at the time) which has been a lot of fun, and I just wanted to share that tidbit because it is so fucking funny to me.