#i am so incredibly normal

[ghostf1ux]

I needed a new computer wallpaper lmao

[that-unfortunate-crow]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the quiet crying at the end of "Bloodsport", the soft sighs at the end of "Jaws", or the Barely Concealed Rage at the end of "Gods"????!!!

[antid0ve]

i think that’s batman, you guys

[currenthyperf1xat1ons]

bitches be like “are you okay” like no mf i have francesca by hozier on full volume and am laying on my kitchen floor pondering my existence

[maybemaehill]

Happy birthday Tom Cruise Please never stop making movies because I need to keep sexualising you and also because the movies are very good and make me cry sometimes. Yes I’m looking at you TG:M. Anyway thank you Mr Movies I look forward to all the ways you inevitably almost kill yourself in the future 💖 :D

[fluffycatgirl]

becoming ibuki mioda irl

[littlegayassbitch]

CHAPTER FUCKIN 2 BABEEYYY LETS GOOOOO

yeah heres chapter 2, sorry if character interactions seem forced, I had a lot of trouble writing the second half bc of writers burnout lol

[redwingbirb]

Help just found this in my drafts oopsies. Well! Time to fix that! :]

Gladstone, Fethry, Donald, and Della in order.

I am definitely normal about that goose mhm. So normal. For additional context I went ahead and marked the Mommy Issues and Daddy Issues for Glad given his parents are dead in several things. And while I don't think he'd punch me I could definitely see him like holding me back from a hug with an awkward chuckle. Thus the mark.

For Fethry he is too baby for me to ever hate. Love him sm. I am shaking him so affectionately. I wasn't sure for the Mommy Issues and Daddy Issues given we aren't given much about his parents? So I let them be. Pats him so softly.

For the twins! Also not sure about their parents. We get like nothing, so I didn't mark things. As for Donald specifically, I tagged on the punch one. I kinda see it more as him freaking out and accidentally socking me in the face! He's just silly like that :]

Uh so I made a character bingo if anyone wants to try it (:

[random-group-of-crows]

I am so normal about cannibalism

[n0anix]

i just be drawing things anyways i need to see gid tinker with stuff more let my boy have hobbies, let him fix up a watch here and there or something

additional doodle of a pestering husband

[aphel1on]

the longer i look at this panel the more deranged i feel about it. this is environmental storytelling at its finest.

the eodio stand-in doll in particular makes me crazy. where did it come from? did thistle just pop into the village like "hey ungrateful wretches, one of you needs to make me a life-sized mannequin, For Reasons". did he make it himself? seems quite unlikely, yet the possibility haunts me. i mean, i guess there could've been one just lying around the dungeon somewhere. it's the act of replacement itself that really gets to me. (edit: it's been pointed out to me that the eodio doll also could have been left behind as part of delgal's escape plan. slightly different kind of madness but tbh, just as funny-sad to me if that happened and thistle went Ok, Guess That's Eodio Now.)

both the wives are there too. we know very little about them, which makes me tend to assume thistle wasn't all that close to them, but they're still included. when did they end up here? did he kick their souls out of their bodies at some point, or were they among those who left their bodies voluntarily to try and escape? when did yaad become an effective orphan, delgal an effective widower? women in the margins of the narrative, tell me your stories!

and the fact that they're surrounded with the living paintings, which thistle habitually wanders through to relive the past. this truly is his inner sanctum, his place of utmost comfort... and it may as well be a tomb.

that panel is so creepy when you first see it. just a sense of "ohh jeez, there's a lot to unpack there".

and actually, yeah, it remains creepy from pretty much any angle, but the more you think about it the more it's also tragic.

this is where many of thistle's happiest moments took place. everything he had in that picture is now gone. first he lost their warm regard, then one-by-one their bodies became hollow shells. before the end, none of the people here needed or enjoyed food anymore. the dinner table, as a center of both family life and nutrition, became obsolete.

a line from someone else's excellent post about thistle has stuck in my head ever since i read it: "to eat is to live, but to eat together is to be loved". to me, this is the sentiment and symbolism at the core of everything that happens in dungeon meshi.

it makes this bit all the sadder and more disturbing.

there's several things to note here:

thistle has gone from seated and eating with them as part of the family, to a lonely and ominous figure hovering over delgal's shoulder

eodio is conspicuously absent from view, and his body would have been a husk by now, but yaad says parents, which forces me to assume that they are sitting at the table with eodio's soulless body, hidden under yaad's speech bubble

they're not actually eating anything.

those plates are empty. you could assume that they've already finished eating, maybe, but yaad refers to it as sitting around the dinner table. in fact, he compares it to what he's currently doing; sitting at the dinner table watching the touden party eat, not eating anything himself.

it paints a pretty grim picture. for some time even after the fantasy had fallen apart, even after there was no need or desire to eat, they kept gathering around the dinner table. at that point, i'd guess only so as not to provoke thistle's wrath.

but even that last happened a long, long time ago.

this is a callback to what senshi said in the golden kingdom: the reason the people keep maintaining their fields and silverware and so forth is that they need to do so in order to stay sane.

paradoxically, the dinner table is the most striking evidence of thistle's insanity, and at the same time, it's the only anchor to sanity he has left.

he kept enforcing the ritual of dinner together long after it lost significance. when even that was impossible- because almost everyone's souls were gone- he kept their bodies at the table anyway. it's fine. it's fine! he's protected them, physically, just like he set out to. they're all still breathing. at a glance it looks like they could wake up and resume dinner at any moment. like this, it's easy to pretend.

isn't that what being a dungeon lord is, at the core of it? rejecting reality, staying in the prison of one's impossible desires. it's just one long game of pretend.

thistle did all this to protect his loved ones. no matter how obsessive and twisted he became in pursuit of that over the years, his core motivation never changed. this is all he has left of that dream: his loved ones' bodies gathered around the locus of their happiest memories together. like this, he can tell himself he's succeeded.

when eodio's body vanished with delgal's soul in it- when he couldn't even have that anymore... well.

i want to reach through the screen and shake him. no, they're not, thistle. THISTLE, NO, THEY'RE NOT! the doll of eodio is the closest thing to him in this panel, underlining the point. when that final illusion was shattered, he became completely unable to cope with reality.

therefore casually forgetting the creepy eodio doll isn't real.

thistle isn't stupid. eodio's body vanished at the same time as delgal's soul. shortly after, more adventurers came pouring in than ever before. deep down, he knows what happened. if he didn't, being confronted with the truth by mithrun wouldn't have made him panic so hard he summoned chimera falin to the first floor.

yet still...

he absolutely can't admit that to himself. he is clinging to the last scraps of the illusion with everything he has.

this is a dungeon lord at the end of desire. this is a lotus-eater machine left running long after its conclusion. this is mithrun lying listlessly in his bed, his replica lover having given up any pretense of being human. the illusion is all that's left. (an illusion is all it ever was.) thistle and the citizens of the golden kingdom- they're ghosts just as much as the ones who wander the dungeon floors. and if it weren't for thistle sealing the lion away, he would've been eaten by it long ago.

all of this encapsulated by that single panel of the dinner table.

[creekfiend]

God I'm so tired of people acting like not wanting to attract a lot of (often negative) attention is somehow Capitulating To Bigots like. The other day I was talking to someone about my strategic deployment of pronouns based on how much of an issue I think a person is likely to make about it and they were like "oh I just do what I want I'm done catering to cis people" and I was like BUDDY. I LIVE IN THE RURAL SOUTH WANTING TO NOT HAVE TO CONSTANTLY GET INTO IT WITH PEOPLE ABOUT MY PERSONAL GENDER IDENTITY IS NOT CATERING TO CIS PEOPLE I HAVE A RIGHT TO WANT TO MOVE THROUGH THE WORLD WITHOUT CONSTANT INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT

Or like I was talking about how I hate swimwear options bc they're all revealing but if you choose to wear like, a t shirt and shorts, people still stare at you because that's socially unusual so it sucks either way and someone was like "I just do it anyway and if people don't like it they can die mad about it" and like... okay. I want to be able to go to the local pool and not either be uncomfortable with what I'm wearing or have people treat me weird about it. I would like for my presence and clothing choices to be considered neutral and it's fine for me to state that actually. This is not assimilationist or capitulating to people. It's going "hm I would love if stepping out my front door didn't have to be a revolutionary act!!!!!" Agghhhhh

[that-unfortunate-crow]

Sleep Token has been strong today so have this tidbit from my brother @mightntbethebest

The lyrics in question:

Can you tell we're so normal about this band?

[luna-loveboop]

Blue Four appreciation

I love Blue Four. 10/10 angry dude

(tone indicator for this post: positive and light-hearted. art and character from @linkeduniverse au)

His motto is "No thoughts head angry" I mean look at him! Every face is grumpy! How you can you hate him. He's got one emotion and it is mad

He is very good at pointing accusingly at people

(Green in the background was tired of it by the second time)

I also love this panel. Wild's body language perfectly captures the correct (only?) reaction to Blue

He was freaked out by all of Four right then, but Blue was especially scary.

His pose here matches a sketch from quite a while ago:

This pleases me

ALSO

Blue was mad at Champ for shoving him,

But his reaction to Twilight's injury was the same as Wild's.

I think they really bonded in this moment:

Same face

And how he has his hair tucked behind his right ear just because he's more edgy? Iconic

Blue four was brought into existence and is full of rage about it, and I relate to respect that

>>>:(((

[catliker49]

Detective Wally on the Case!

Huzzah! (My new favourite word currently! Hehe) I have returned once more to share my doodle... of Wally... In a trench coat!!! I Love anything Pinstriped I wish my hands weren't so wobbly but there you have it! OH! And Ditto and Applelin are so Lovely <:O( I need so much merch of them.. PLEASE!!

[whomstdvelynt]

she’s dead, scar. you won.