#fantasy DID YOU

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

They say I'm not so good with circles. Or air. Or control. But I can still blast your ass to the end of days if you're not careful, so!

- Derivative High Fantasy Adventuring Duo

[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.

[fangirls-just-want-to-have-fun]

this is the only thing I can contribute after burning through the new episodes of mismag

[australet789]

People misundertanding I Cant Help But Wonder, thinking that Odysseus doesnt care about Athena aymore when my man was like 3 meters away from his wife, his inmortal friend could wait a little to have an existential talk in that moment with him.

[chushanye]

The "the average solesian meets 3 gods in their lifetime" factoid is actually a statistical error. The average solesian meets no gods in their life. Kristen Applebees, who has died so many times that she meets 2 gods per year, is an outlier and should not be counted.

[bardic-irritation]

Fucking props to Zac Oyama for successfully pulling off what is probably one of the most brilliant attempts to outsmart the DM I've ever seen in the history of Dimension 20.

[myrathefarmer]

Who’s excited for FantasyCraft! Once I found out Cleo and Lizzie would be in it, I had to draw them right away 💖🐍🪄

[unlikablefemaleprotagonist]

in hindsight, s1 shellford listing the teachers who watch the crystal footage ("porter looks at it, jace looks at it, coach daybreak looks at it, vice principal goldenhoard looks at it") is absolutely hilarious.

4/4 bbegs. do none of the GOOD teachers want to take a gander at the crucial security footage while teenage girls are going missing en masse??

[nostalgicfun]

** the last two options exist because I know there will be great debate about which Three Days Grace/Linkin Park song should be on here

[bacchuschucklefuck]

they licensed his ass

my finished piece of the FWMS (official name definitely 100%) thing we started a few days ago! I had fun I hope folks had and/or continue to have fun with the sketch as well.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A procession of confessions.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[mythalism]

call me crazy but there is a difference between treating your adult players like they are new to the world and treating your adult players like they have the memory of a goldfish and the vocabulary of a 9 year old

[ega30005-blog]

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN! It didn’t even happen during a big moment either. It’s actually insane. When it happened my ENTIRE section freaked out. I texted my crush (obviously) and every person that saw my sign asked if I did. Murph is playing matchmaker and he doesn’t even know!

[the-greatest-magic-of-all]

Since it's coming up on the first anniversary of FH: Junior Year, I've been thinking about that hypothetical (probably unlikely) fourth season, and I really think it should be set during the Bad Kids' High School Reunion. Especially after MisMag 2, I feel like the storytelling opportunities just compound if the Intrepid Heroes had the space to let the Bad Kids' circumstances change more drastically than they would if they did a Senior Year or even a Homecoming.

Like, you could totally still have the first episode set in their Senior Year, and have it be on their Graduation Day. The Bad Kids could have all of their sweet, sentimental moments that you'd want to see (while also setting up the season's Big Bad, ala The Seven) and have the six of them (Fig crashes the Grad Party) take a group picture photo.

All of them are filled with so much hope and aspirations before hard cutting to ten years later and meet all of them in their late twenties (thirty for Fabian), and they are doing... not horribly, but we've seen what Spyre's like for teen adventurers. What's it like for a bunch of adults who used to or still do adventure??

How much have the Bad Kids grown? How much have they backslid into their old ways? How much do they keep in touch, and who are the ones who are still closest after high school?

How does Fig feel about getting older and maybe losing some of that teenage rebellion? How does Kristen deal with actually having a congregation that's counting on her? How often does Gorgug think about killing his new boss, Arthur Aguefort? How exhausted is Adaine in the midst of the Wizard equivalent of a Doctorate (and her mother still evading her and Aelwen)? How badly does Riz need this reunion because adventuring without his best friends just isn't the same? AND most importantly...

How many divorces is Fabian Aramais Seacaster on, and why is it two?

[probablybadrpgideas]

Sexually transmitted destinies

[murchellie]

⋆ ⁺ ‧ ₊☽ ◯| Shadowheart |◯ ☾₊ ‧ ⁺ ⋆

Idk, I think it looks good, hope the ladies will get as much love as boys or I cry. enjoy ;)

⋆⭒˚ .

Shadowheart | Lae'zel | Karlach | Minthara

Wyll | Asatrion | Gale | Halsin

⋆ ⭒˚.⋆ ˚ ⋆⭒˚. ⋆

Commissions: Open