#flashback so this makes some more sense

[dont-look-at-me-u-u]

yo my bad i did NOT mean to add that much text to the last two i guess i needed more words to describe it that i thought 😭

[welcometogrouchland]

I miss them so bad (Dick and Damian)

[longagoitwastuesday]

ngl it sort of pisses me off the way adults regard Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen at times. Which could be a very interesting and poignant point in a good way if well written, but as it is it becomes mainly just frustrating and sad in a negative way.

Nanami saying Gojo never cared about anything or anyone other than himself crashes interestingly with Kusakabe saying the whole situation was just all his fault because he refused to kill Itadori. The students are very aware of those aspects of Gojo's personality, but overall they seem to regard him with way more kindness and fondness even when at their rudest, not truly coinciding with either Nanami's or Kusakabe's views.

[worstloki]

mu qing you deserve so much better

[crehador]

i don't know if i think it's really funny or kind of a shame that many people are going to know tadaima okaeri solely as "the omegaverse bl" when it's actually such a sweet slice-of-life about community, family, the struggles of the older generation to understand the younger and vice versa, recovering from social isolation and how recursive that recovery can be, forging lasting friendships as adults, and so on. it's so wholesome and drama-free that it barely has any plot to speak of, but what it lacks in plot it makes up for in themes and man. what beautiful themes

[isthereintruthnobeauty1968]

thinking about saavik again orz

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Empire Wars

brutal YA dystopian fantasy, start of a duology

set in a future climate-ravaged world taken over by a white supremacist empire

a girl raised feral has to survive being hunted along with other foreigners and political enemies on a deadly magical island

and a princess of the Makari-African people newly married into the regime, intent on bringing it down if she can find a way

[foxmulderautism]

i am being silly.......cause why am i getting visions for lover boy chapters being "colour coded"

[thasorns-moved]

I wasn’t surprised that Lue turned out to be Din but people got kinda confused about why Peter/Din cried after Ken said ‘Din is my only love’. In my theory and imagination it’s because the old Din is kinda there and kinda not. He went through so much, he was given a new face and identity. He needed to leave his family and love behind. He also couldn’t contacted them because if he did, they maybe could’ve gotten in trouble because as far as we know only Din knew that the Chief is the villain. Only a few people knew he was alive hence the Doctor and if I am not mistaken the sister... He came up with a plan to get his revenge and on his own (again it’s only what I think because he was alone when the attacks happened) I don’t even wanna imagine how lonely he must’ve felt during all this... So, now he is back in Thailand to get his revenge and look ‘his’ boyfriend is also back. He tried to get close to him as ‘Peter Lue’ while Ken was all about Din. Yeah, at this point we know Peter is Din but at the same time not (are you all still with me on this? Can you follow?) like I don’t want to interpret too much but like we cannot deny the fact that Din changed inside and out (at least that’s what I think). So Peter/Din is trying to approach Ken in many ways so he can forget the old Din because he is not coming back but at the same time Ken can’t and won’t forget his only love to the point where he believed he was still alive. His delusions became a reality for Ken which kinda hurt Peter/Din because yes, I believe he wanted to tell Ken the truth about everything because nothing hurts more than when your hands are bound and you can’t do anything to help your love to ease his pain. He could only watch even with his many attempts to get close to him. I believe he truly wants to help him to move on to find some kind of happiness in his life, to begin a new life maybe with Peter/Din while Ken can’t and won’t give up. Peter/Din sees how miserable Ken is because of him but like I said he can’t do anything about it... How many times did Ken push him away? I can’t even count anymore.... Din is Peter’s past while Peter is his present and future, for Ken - Din is his past, present and future (can you all still follow because I can’t even catch my thoughts). So in conclusion: Ken would’ve never gotten Din as Peter a chance, which of course hurts Peter/Din because he can’t replace ‘Din’.

[causticsunshine]

me: has several fic wips to finish from last year, two fest fics due in march and april, several art pieces left half completed, a full time job complete with an exhaustive schedule and manual labor

also me: yeah yeah okay BUT hear me out. what about a juno au.

[teruthecreator]

the general plotline from wolf -> jamba -> cowboy -> awkward is one of my fav parts of wolf

[gonguji]

another  lil  hc!           whilst  I  do  like  all  depiction  of  Kabukimono  (  canonic  &&  fandom  ) ,    I  think  rendering  him  as  not  knowing  how  to  do  anything ,  how  the  world  of  humans  work  at  all ,  or  making  him  beyond  clueless  is  a  bit  too  popular .      I  much  prefer  him  to  had  been  trained   by  Ei ,  lectured  about  the  art  of  performance  such  as  kenbushido . . .    he  canonically  has  memories  with  Ei  &&  Yae ,  even  wears  reisō  (  white  attire  for  shintō  purification  rituals  )  signifying  his  affiliation  with  the  Grand  Narukami  Shrine .        he  had  the  entire  Shakkei  Pavillion  to  himself  with  all  the  equipment  inside ,  with  no  servants  nor  guards  so  he  was  most  likely  awaiting  the  day  his  mothers  would  return .        I  firmly  believe  he  was  preparing  each  day  to  properly  greet  them,  which  also  requires  basic  skills .

[oblako]

249 episodes and we still know barely anything about shinhye

[brambletakato]

OK PSA TIME. Idk if anybody else struggles with this but.

You have every right to not allow someone to use your chosen name. That is YOUR NAME and your name alone. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, should define how you should use your name except yourself.

If someone using your chosen name makes you uncomfortable, setting boundaries with them does NOT make that chosen name any less of a name.

Boundaries are HEALTHY.

[ambrosiagourmet]

I want to talk about why I think this is the one of the most important Falin panels:

So, Falin is really nice, right? It's one of the first things we really learn about her. She's kind even to the monsters of the dungeon - choosing to ward the party rather than fight spirits and cause them needless harm.

In the above early flashback in chapter 11, we see Marcille fawning over Falin's kindness, calling her an angel. Namari calls her soft-hearted. We see Falin choose not to fight even when a zombie attacks - instead she resolves the confrontation with a hug. After the flashback, the first thing Senshi says is that Falin "sounds like quite the person," which Marcille strongly affirms.

At this point in the story, all we have seen of Falin are these impressions; she is a healer, an angel, a caretaker with an infinite well of kindness towards everyone she meets - both friend and foe.

And honestly, that remains most of what we have to go by to understand her. The only times we get to see Falin on the page, alive and just herself, are in the opening and closing pages of the story and in the brief period of time after she is resurrected.

Nonetheless, we do have some more details to work with. For one, there is the scene that The Panel is from - a short memory in chapter 75, when Marcille flashes back to while she's dying. In that scene, Falin prepares to teleport them all out, and says that she's sorry "if there is a person at [their] destination." And that's when we get The Panel.

If you teleport someone or something into another person, the person teleported into is likely to be, at minimum, severely injured. They could die.

We can see a lovely little horrifying example of exactly why in one of the Daydream Hour doodles:

So, hmm. That's not... that's not SUPER nice. Certainly not displaying the same "kindness to all, friend and foe included" we saw represented earlier. On a basic level, this adds some nuance to Falin's kindness. We see it break a little, when pushed to the limit. We see her chose to protect the people she loves above all else.

Which makes sense! As Laios says when the Winged Lion accuses him of similarly being motivated more by his friends' safety than everyone else in the dungeon, "...most people, aside from virtuous do-gooders, would feel the same way."

So, we can take The Panel as simply showing a moment of weakness for Falin. A time when she was pushed to her limits, and that "most people" selfish side of her shone through.

However... I think there's a little more going on with Falin than just her being an angel 99% of the time, except just that once. I love The Panel because I think it helps us understand that Falin isn't just motivated by kindness - she also has a desire to avoid seeing people in pain.

Isn't that the same thing?

No, no it very much is not.

Let's look at a short comic from the Falin section of the Adventurer's Bible, because I think it illustrates this point perfectly. The group is complaining about how much Marcille's healing hurts, and comparing it to Falin's, which "doesn't hurt a bit." Marcille retorts with the following:

Now, the punchline of this comic is that, despite Marcille's sentimental assertion that she's "thinking of [them]" by letting her healing magic hurt, they all still prefer to be healed by Falin.

But hey, this wouldn't be the first time that Dungeon Meshi hides a very real character beat or insight in a gag, so let's think about this somewhat seriously.

If Marcille is right (and she knows a fair bit about magic, so we can assume that she has at least somewhat of a point), then what Falin is doing isn't kind. I suppose if someone specifically requested to not feel the pain, it could be kind, but that's not really what happened here. She is the one who felt badly about the others being in pain, and she is the one who decided, without telling them or giving them a choice in the matter, to take away that pain.

Both Marcille and Falin are healing the party, but Marcille is doing it in a way that accomplishes the task in the most straight forward way, without any additional interference. Falin is going out of her way to perform the healing in a way she is more comfortable with. A way that avoids pain.

Going back the The Panel, I don't think its a coincidence that the only time we see Falin (well, non-chimera Falin) willing to do something that could hurt someone is when any potential pain will be far away from her. If she got someone hurt or killed by teleporting the party to the surface? Not only would it be far out of her sight, but she'd be dead before she had to deal with any consequences of that action.

Falin is not a confrontational person. She doesn't push when Marcille won't tell her the truth about the resurrection, and she comforts Laios about her own death - both of those things happening in the only full chapter she is alive and conscious in the whole story.

We also know that she considered accepting Shuro's proposal, despite not having any special feelings towards him, and that Falin never explained to Marcille that she wanted them to share a meal together. When she brought Marcille various foods at the academy, she just accepted Marcille's confused rejection and gave up.

And lastly, we know that she is still in contact with her parents, despite the neglect and abuse she suffered at their hands. Although the way someone chooses to handle contact with abusive or bad family is a complicated topic, which I don't want to overly simplify, I do I think this fact gets at the heart of how she handles conflict.

So many people that Falin loves have hurt her. There are understandable hurts, like Laios leaving the village, or Marcille not understanding the food. And there are bigger, far less justifiable hurts - like her parents neglecting her throughout her childhood, and sending her away to be alone at the magic academy.

It doesn't seem like Falin has ever confronted any of it directly.

And the unhealthy aspects of this kind of avoidance of pain and confrontation is one of the things that the story of Dungeon Meshi is all about. We see Laios grapple with it before he goes to kill Falin, and we see Marcille acknowledge it at the end of the story, when she tells Laios that she has come to terms with Falin's death:

Eating is a part of life. Consuming other living things is a part of life. It isn't really possible to avoid that pain - you can only hide from the truth of it. You have to be selfish everyday. You have to eat - to choose to live. To choose to take up space.

And this is something Falin embraces, too. She comes back to life, after all.

We see her choose to come back to life.

And how does she make that choice? She eats. She consumes, and then she is asked a question by the manifestation of hunger itself:

Do you want to eat more?

There is a double meaning in the Winged Lion's final words on the next page.

When I first read this, I took it as him saying: life is cruel. You will suffer. You will feel more pain.

But perhaps, especially for Falin, this also means: you are choosing a path where you must cause pain. Where you must consume. Where you must take, and must be selfish. Because eating is the special privilege of the living, and it is their burden, too. In order to stay alive, she will need to keep eating.

And she chooses that. Chooses to be selfish. It's why her resurrection scene is so important, and it's why The Panel is so important. Because Falin coming back isn't the ultimate reward for all of the party's hard work.

It's her choice. Just like it was her choice that started everything in the first place. But this time, she doesn't choose to accept causing pain for the sake of Marcille and Laios. She does it for her own sake.

[hauntingblue]

Luffy expressing his emotions freely while katakuri becomes more unhinged as he uses repression to be calm and collected in fights but it no longer working bc he can't win and it's driving him up the walls..... exactly