#has my heart though

[melziss]

i fished wynnona earp a couple of days ago, and im just out here wondering how the hell did ya'll earpers survive the ending, not knowing that there would be a "sequel."

don't get me wrong i was devastated when it ended, mostly because when i was watching legends of tomorrow i was "told" there were 15 seasons...but knowing about the 90 minute special had me so exited that i already stoped mourning the end of the show.

[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.

[kavaleyre]

“After 200 years, you can forget how much color there is in the world.”

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Why are you running?

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[redundantz]

cuddle time

love scene challenge

[p4nishers]

crowley, drunk off his ass: and i was yk just some fucked up soul born in cold and rain but he was my fucking sunlight or whatever

hozier, frantically writing on a napkin: HHHMMMM TELL ME MORE

[sam-reid]

Tom Cruise and Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994) INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2022--)

[rhythmmortis]

kh1 is the best kh game because it lets you go Creature Mode

[uponthebarricade]

i'm always delighted by an enjolras who is stupidly oblivious to his feelings but on the other hand please give me an enjolras who is painfully aware of them.

give me an enjolras who is acutely aware that he is different to the other amis, that he will never be able to express himself in the same ways that they do.

give me an enjolras who watches les amis drinking and joking around and smiles along passively, but always feels a pit in his stomach and a heavy weight on his shoulders, anticipating the rise of the revolution and knowing that their happiness could shatter at any moment.

give me an enjolras who knows he isn't a fun person to be around, who knows he seems distant and untouchable when there a million thoughts running through his head, who deflects concern and masks his fears with a stoic and prideful facade.

give me an enjolras who observes everything happening around him but never finds enough time to join in, who realises just how much of his youth he is missing out on but never gets the chance to grieve it.

give me an enjolras who dismisses marius not because he cannot comprehend the idea of romance, but because he is tired of everyone obsessing over something he knows he will never experience.

give me an enjolras who is acutely aware of his beauty and charisma and ability to manipulate others, who feels no guilt for using it to further their cause, but wonders if anyone ever sees the real him.

give me an enjolras who can't stop himself from ridiculing grantaire because he reminds him of himself on his worst days, when in the back of his mind his faith dares to falter and a tugging in his gut whispers of what is to come.

give me an enjolras who knows he can be cruel and terrifying, but who understands it is sometimes necessary to be terrible for the greater good.

give me an enjolras with so much to do, always in a state of go, go, go, who then stares at the ceiling in the middle of the night, unable to fall asleep when there is no longer anything to distract him from the fact that he is very, very scared.

give me an enjolras who at some point realises he is leading his friends to ruin, who is overcome by a staggering guilt for each and every of them, but who knows he has nothing to live for and everything to die for.

give me an enjolras who, for a split second, hand in hand, feels a kind of love for grantaire in his death that he had never felt for anyone or anything in his life.

[gummi-ships]

[benevolenterrancy]

(Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett) I think Shang Qinghua and Ponder Stibbons should have tea and compare notes about somehow accumulating so much behind-the-scenes power by doing menial jobs no one else wants that they could basically run the show if they wanted...

meanwhile we have Shen "meh good enough" Qingqiu

[foxstens]

never not thinking about how kevin day is david wymack's son

imagine you're kevin, practically born with a racquet in your hand, you grow up with your mother for a while and maybe you ask about your father and she tells you not to worry about it, or maybe you just never ask because she doesn't mention it and you don't know how important it is, yet. then she dies, you're moved to evermore, it's so different from what you've seen previously but you have no choice so you just bow your head and do your best to survive, clinging onto your mother's sport, clinging onto the idea that you'll become a star.

you're there for so long you eventually forget you've ever been outside of it, but you see how desperate riko is for his father's attention so you start wondering, however briefly, about the concept of a father.

then you're in high school, you find the letter and suddenly it's not just a vague concept you have to wonder about, suddenly it's something real and tangible. you've heard of david wymack, it would've been impossible not to since he was a friend of your mother's and considering the kind of team he's taken up to creating, maybe you've even met him extremely briefly at some point. you know enough about the industry to think his team isn't just a publicity stunt, and somehow you know that if he finds out he'll do everything in his power to get you out.

you're not stupid enough to tell riko this, but you do tell jean and he laughs at you. of course he does. but you've been there for too long, you've seen too much, and you're old enough to understand what the master would do if he deemed david wymack to be a threat. you can't leave riko's side therefore you can't tell him any time soon, possibly ever, so you resolve to reading the letter over and over instead. (riko reads it almost as often as you)

then you're 19 and the erc thinks riko is holding you back. you're 19 and you're watching riko stomp on everything you've built up through the years. you're 19 and the letter is the only reason you have the strength to leave.

you tell wymack and the team as much as you dare because they deserve to know the risks of having you here, and wymack takes it in stride, he puts himself and his team at risk and even takes out loans to keep you here, like you knew he would. he signs you and he deserves to know about the letter, the more time passes the worse it'll be when you do tell him, but you can't yet because it's too soon and you don't trust yourself to tell riko no when the time comes.

then neil is asking for your help

now imagine you're wymack. your childhood was shit and you didn't have the support you needed at the time, but you believe you can be better than the hands that shaped you. kayleigh taught you everything you know about exy, and you loved her so it stung when she died and you couldn't be there for her only son. but, no matter what you might think of tetsuji moriyama, you don't think kayleigh would send her son to an unsafe place. you just go on with your days, maybe tune in on the news to see that kevin's doing well. you have no reason to think otherwise.

when you have the opportunity to start an exy team from scratch, you dedicate it to the kids that need another chance, the kids the world has given up on. you'll never give up on them.

then, what feels like a lifetime later, kevin day is standing in front of your hotel room and asking you for help. he's saying his 'beloved brother' broke his hand, he's saying the moriyamas are part of the yakuza, he's saying they'll kill him if they find him. throughout the year you get to know him better, you see that he's grown up to be a caged and abused wreck, you see he was raised to care about nothing but exy, you see him having a panic attack at the mere mention of having to face his former team, you see him drinking himself to oblivion to cope. you can't undo the past so you do your best to support him now, but damn if you don't wish you could've been there for him.

then he's telling you he's your son

[ruporas]

i’ll find you again in every universe. let us be a little more honest, let us have a little more time.

[egophiliac]

have you seen the new nightwear groovy? alas, the dream of the animal onesies or the pillow fight groovy are dashed 😞 - i have yet to see the card's story but i assume that yuu is interviewing the boys again this year like the birthday boy cards cause there's no other characters in the card (?)

I too am disappointed that we didn't get a big full-on pillow fight. 😔 but he DOES battle by throwing his pillow, so at least we get some cushion action in there!

it looks like this round of birthday cards aren't going to be interviews/conversations, at least not for most of it -- the first part was Jamil talking to Ortho (who he duos with) about what his dormmates are doing for his birthday (they're setting up a surprise party/parade (because Kalim) but they're doing an extremely bad job of it and he's having to go around making sure that they don't screw it up) (being Jamil is suffering). second part was Jamil talking to his (unvoiced mob) roommate and answering Crowley's School Improvement Survey (he wants bigger bathrooms) (also a fridge in his room) (actually, make that a whole kitchen) (but mostly bigger bathrooms). then third part was his ~morning routine~, aka talking to himself about his hair and makeup, as one does in a visual novel. it's less cohesive than the previous birthday stories, but it's all pretty chill and there's some fun stuff in there! (Najma sent him hair stuff for his birthday that's way too fancy and he can't decide if she did it to annoy him or not. truly, being Jamil is indeed suffering.)

if all the cards are going to be about nightly/morning routine though, we're going to absolutely melt when we get to Vil, brace yourselves

[tubbytarchia]

@mcyt-yuri-week Day 5, Rose/Thorns I never stop thinking about SL episode 8 never ever

[lotus-pear]

regret