#for like 100 loops

[lilithrebellion]

You ever just....stare at your old Yui art for hours on end because you're distracted by how gorgeous and perfect she is?😊

Yeah, me too.

[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.

[drakonstar]

for boobeep on artfight!

instagram | my website

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS x ISAT part 2: Grandmaster of Time.

(Part 1)

[himehomu]

One of my favorite madohomu scenes of all time takes place in the anime, episode 8 at the 17:50 mark to be exact. After Homura kills Kyubey before Madoka can make a contract with him, she approaches Madoka and asks why she's so self-sacrificial, tells her to stop demeaning herself by thinking so lowly of herself, begs her to think of the people who think the world of her, those who'd be mournful if, god forbid, anything were to happen to her, to please think of those trying to keep her safe. From Madoka's perspective, this is the first time the usually stoic, cold, and standoffish Homura is being vulnerable, open, and emotional. From Madoka's perspective, this is the first time she's seen someone so seemingly brave as Homura cry. The first time she's ever heard her voice above her usual calm and collected tone. This is the first time Madoka sees Homura so upset, so frustrated, so afraid.

Madoka, whom has never met this girl aside from seeing her in a strange dream, sees Homura fall to her knees and cry and, as if on instinct, Madoka stands up to comfort her.

And, in this moment, Madoka has some moment of clarity, recognition, familiarity. It goes by pretty fast, but if you capture this moment frame by frame, you can tell in the way her face changes and she stares at seemingly nothing. She goes from staring down at Homura worriedly to getting caught off guard by something. It kind of looks like she's looking at something off screen until a black void of static accompanied by a low buzzing plays for a brief second before Madoka, out of nowhere, asks "Have we met before?" Then you realize she was experiencing that feeling of familiarity from seeing Homura so upset. "Wait, have I done this before. Have I comforted this girl before? Have I seen her cry before?"

This scene is so powerful to me, because this Madoka doesn't know Homura. Or, at least, she shouldn't. Yet, when she sees this girl fall to her knees crying, when she sees this seemingly emotionless girl so broken and fragile, and more importantly as soon as Madoka stands to comfort her, she has this sense of "Have we met before? Have we done this before? Have I seen you like this before?"

Even in her "dream," she wanted to protect Homura, wanted to stop what was happening in front of her: Homura giving up her life to defeat Walpurgisnacht and failing. That's the reason why she agreed to become a Magical Girl in the "dream"; she wanted to change the outcome of Homura's fate. In the first timeline, she saved Homura from a Witch. Despite Homura wishing to be the one protecting Madoka, the moment Homura lets her brave facade down, shows vulnerability, is afraid and frustrated and upset, Madoka stands up to do what comes naturally to her: comforting and protecting Homura. And that's what sparks her recognition. She stands to comfort her because deep down she feels like she knows her from somewhere, that they've met somewhere, sometime before. Throughout the anime, when Sayaka and Mami were antagonistic towards Homura, Madoka kept saying "Is she really that bad?" and "I feel like we could all be friends" and "What if she's telling the truth?" Because she's known her throughout 100 time loops, she's protected her throughout 100 time loops, she's loved her throughout 100 time loops. This is kind of an underrated madohomu moment yet it's one of the most solidifying on Madoka's end.

[oobbbear]

Sobbing crying throwing up, I did not notice this one watching the play through

[meamiki]

wanted to do a proper lineup of everyone with the shades i usually use :]

and also partially so i can also just grab the img from here in a pinch as a ref instead of looking for the file LMAO

regular bw and some extra tests under the cut! (expect below to be sporadically edited if i test more palettes out LOL)

^ literally just a test to lean more grey lol.

[bitchthefuck1]

Tom's line about Shiv being selfish and "find[ing] it very hard to think about me" is actually so telling because while it's absolutely true that she rarely takes his position into consideration, Tom never once thinks about what he can do to help Shiv unless it also benefits him.

Every single time he makes a move or sacrifice that might help her, it's always something that he thinks will give him a leg up. He volunteers to take the fall for cruises, not for Shiv, who is in no way implicated, or even for Waystar, but because he thinks it'll ingratiate him to Logan, and the second it seems like he might have to actually follow through on that, he immediately tries to get out of it and even throws Shiv under the bus. Meanwhile, for all that Shiv disregards his interests, there are a number of things she does that only help him, and she's the one who actually sacrifices something and undermines her position with Logan to beg him not to let Tom go to jail.

It just makes it so clear that no matter how much he might love her (and I think he does, in his own compromised way), for him their relationship was always built on the underlying assumption that it's her job to prop him up, but it's not his job to help her.

[indecisitivity]

HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK OMG

i was reading the tmagp fandom wiki and sam's page says this??

experimented on?? by the magnus institute??? somebody please explain i didn't do the ARG

[starphenie]

whenever i think of how nikki's personality has changed from her first game to her latest i get so emotional.. bring back silly lazy genki girl nik </3

[necroticboop]

❝ The moment Liliana defied Nicol Bolas, her contract was broken and her life was forfeit. But she was free to choose her fate, and she decided it was worth the price. ❞

[missingexaltation]

I've seen so many fics where a) everyone knows about steddie before they do, b) a 3rd party gets them together because they're useless, c) put the idea into their heads to get together. But I'd love it to be the opposite, like everyone assumes that they're just good friends, that Steve has finally got a guy friend (that wasn't awkwardly dating his ex).

I'd love a relieved Robin, who's annoyed that Steve didn't tell her earlier, but glad beyond belief that she's not been replaced as 'best friend'. 'Thank God he's just your boyfriend, dingus.'

Give me a Nancy who's concerned at first that their break up was so traumatic that it 'turned' Steve gay, and she's then corrected and relieved (because she still loves Steve, just not like that).

Give me confused kids that are immediately grossed out (because it's them, not because they're both guys), but who were completely blindsided. Who gather to gossip and try and figure out if they should have seen the signs (which were so obvious in hind sight).

Worried Hopper, Joyce and Claudia, who are more concerned about Eddie's 'illegal extra curriculars' than anything else.

'I don't get it, Steve's such a good kid,'

'Well to be honest Jim, Eddie's never been anything but polite to me'

'because you're seeing his uncle, Claudia, he has to be nice to you!'

'I think you're being too harsh on the poor boy.'

'He's a drug dealer, Joyce!'

'He nearly died, Jim, and besides, the kids love him!'

In fact, the only people who know are Wayne and Argyle. Wayne, because Eddie has zero filter with him, and does not shut up about Steve at all, (but who's ecstatic that his boy is finally doing well and is happy).

And Argyle because he's just so removed from the situation that I (personally) find it hilarious that he'd clock them immediately. 'Good for you, brochachos!'

[adriancatrin]

sketches from the cave of two lovers aka the boys are GRUMPY

[loving-jack-kelly]

time loop fic where davey is trapped in a time loop and the only way to break it is to confess his feelings to jack directly and unambiguously but the fic is from jack's perspective so it's a perfectly normal day except davey is acting really weird and then gives the most confusing love confession ever because he doesn't know it'll break the loop so he's under the impression that this will all reset anyway

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Siffrin plays Disco Elysium AU: Featuring backseat gamer Loop.

[vse-kar-vem]

everybody's waiting at the ball 👁️🪩💡🌟🕯️